A look at the 2008 Election Contest and What Lies Just Below the Surface

First in a series

On the surface, the 2008 Presidential election is a contest between the Republican ticket of John McCain & Sarah Palin and the Democratic ticket of Barack Obama & Joe Biden.  But in fact, three other struggles lurk just below the headlines: first, the masses vs. the elite; second, traditionalists vs. feminists; third, McCain vs. the Republican Party.   These are the once and future struggles; they raged before this presidential election, and they will rage long after Election Day, no matter who wins.

Let’s take a look at each one of these in turn, in three different parts.

The Masses vs. the Elite

Once upon a time, it was easy to say who the elite was.  It was the rich, typically represented by the Republican Party, typically opposed by the Democratic Party.   But after a century of the progressive income tax, the full enfranchisement of women and minorities, and a more transparent political process, including campaign finance reform, the rich no longer have much direct power.   Fatcats can no longer buy legislatures, and ordinary folks don’t feel threatened by some billionaire whooping it up in Beverly Hills or the Hamptons.  Moreover, the ritzy parts of Los Angeles and New York are now Democratic strongholds; polls this year show that Obama actually leads McCain among voters earning $75,000 or more per year.  So the Democrats spend much less time practicing “class warfare,” and much more time preaching “personal freedom”—all the while soliciting campaign donations from swank zip codes.

So who, then, is the elite?  For four decades now, Republicans have had their answer: It’s the media elite, and its cultural allies, whom Americans should fear.   That sort of anti-media populism was initially enshrined by Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew; that duo had been elected to the White House in 1968 over the virulent opposition of the “Liberal Establishment,” then led by CBS News and The New York Times—and that virulent opposition continued against the new administration.

For their part, the Nixon-Agnew team fought back, rallying what they called “the silent majority.”  Agnew in particular loved ripping into the press, calling them such names as “nattering nabobs of negativism.”  He delivered a detailed critique in a speech in Des Moines on November 13, 1969, taking note of “a gaggle of commentators” who provided “instant rebuttal” to Nixon policies, especially Vietnam.   Here’s the 39th Vice President, speaking 39 years ago:

What do Americans know of the men who wield this power, of the men who produce and direct the network news….We do know that, to a man, these commentators and producers live and work in the geographical and intellectual confines of Washington, D.C. or New York City–the latter of which James Reston terms the “most unrepresentative community in the entire United States.” …. These men thus read the same newspapers, and draw their political and social views from the same sources. Worse, they talk constantly to one another, thereby providing artificial reinforcement to their shared viewpoints. … A raised eyebrow, an inflection of the voice, a caustic remark dropped in the middle of a broadcast can raise doubts in a million minds about the veracity of a public official or the wisdom of a Government policy.

Agnew’s speech, written by then-White House aide Pat Buchanan, set the stage for the new kind of populism, in which media power was seen as a more powerful, and more dangerous, force than money power:

One Federal Communications Commissioner considers the powers of the networks equal to that of local, state, and Federal Governments all combined.  Certainly it represents a concentration of power over American public opinion unknown in history.

The overall point is worth dwelling on.   Media power is a stupendous new force, needing to be recognized, criticized, and somehow counter-balanced.   And the American people seemed to agree.  This is, after all, The Information Age, where the medium is the message, where the real story is the story.   The Nixon-Agnew ticket was overwhelmingly re-elected in 1972.

Now fast forward to today: In seeking to rally a majority of the voters, McCain has put forth a clear definition of the elite: It’s the media, including all those who make up the “chattering class” of commentators, think tankers, opinion leaders, and activist socialites.   This is a significant shift for McCain, who once cultivated those same chatterers; as recently as three years ago, he could joke that the press was “my base.”  But over the past few years, he seems to have figured that being the liberals’ favorite conservative—appearing on the cover of Esquire magazine, guest-hosting “Saturday Night Live”—was fun, but that was no path to the White House.

Some will quickly say, of course, that this whole anti-media argument is specious.  Such commentators, mostly on the left, will argue that it’s still the money elite that trumps the media elite.    Thomas Frank, for example, was moved to write a whole book in 2004, “What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America,” lamenting that the people of red-state America would let themselves be bamboozled by conservatives.   Frank pointed to the “systematic erasure of the economic” and its replacement by a sense of silent-majority identity, whereby “there is no bad economic turn a conservative cannot do unto his buddy in the working class, as long as cultural solidarity has been cemented over a beer.”  Frank is saying, in effect, that ordinary voters are dumb: The descendants of populists, who once properly cried “soak the rich,” are now foolishly, according to Frank, campaigning against abortion and gay marriage.

Frank’s book was catnip for liberal chatterers, who could thereby explain away the defeat of Democratic presidential candidates in seven of the last 10 elections; the evil Republicans simply pulled the wool over the eyes of not-too-smart voters.  But Frank’s book nevertheless boomeranged: He merely reminded conservatives of who they were against, and why.

Now, McCain, having rediscovered his conservative populism, regularly rips into the media elite.  Here’s a headline from the September 2 Bloomberg News: “McCain Turns Sour on His Onetime Media ‘Base’ as Election Nears.”

The real flashpoint, of course, has been the nomination of Palin.   McCain’s campaign chief Steve Schmidt has lashed out at “offensive” and “demeaning” coverage of Palin.

And Palin herself has tapped into that resentment.  As she said in her acceptance speech on Thursday night, “I’ve learned quickly, these past few days, that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.”

And then she stuck it right in their eye: “But here’s a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion – I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country. Americans expect us to go to Washington for the right reasons, and not just to mingle with the right people.

In so saying, Palin has let loose a torrent of populist fervor, which has “bounced” the McCain-Palin ticket into the lead.

According to Rasmussen Reports, a big driver has been popular backlash against the media. The pollster found that 68 percent of voters believe that “most reporters try to help the candidate they want to win,” and that 49 percent believe reporters are backing Obama, compared to just 14 percent who believe reporters favor McCain.  Indeed, 51 percent think that the media are “trying to hurt” Palin with their coverage.

And here’s the Agnew-esque clincher: “55 percent said media bias is a bigger problem for the electoral process than large campaign donations.”  In other words, media power is more to be feared than money power.

Populism has ebbed and flowed throughout American history.  Sometimes populist rebellions succeed, as when Andrew Jackson won the presidency in 1828, having led “the revolt of the rustics,” or when Ronald Reagan won in 1980.  Other populist efforts have failed, including William Jennings Bryan in 1896 and Barry Goldwater in 1964.

So what will happen in 2008?  Some clues to the answer of that mega-question will be found in parts two and three of this series.