Our candidates' horrible, horrible gaffes

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

SUMMER, 2003: At a campaign stop in Philadelphia, John Kerry, unaware that Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches are made with Velveeta, orders his and asks for Swiss cheese.

Can we allow this man to become the leader of the free world?

FALL, 2003: Wesley Clark jumps into the presidential race. The day after announcing his candidacy, he is asked a question by a reporter and asks one of his staff to help him answer.

Can we allow this man to become the leader of the free world?

JANUARY, 2004: Howard Dean screams into a microphone.

Can we allow this man to become the leader of the free world?

OK, all kidding aside, I'm a Dean supporter, so obviously my impetus to write this was based on the public reaction to his speech on Monday night, but I've seen similar things happen to the other candidates as they've been on the campaign trail over the last year. John Kerry has spent decades in the senate. Wesley Clark has one of the most highly distinguished military careers of anyone currently walking the earth. But what do the great unwashed masses talk about when trying to choose a candidate? Single, superficial events that have no bearing on a given candidate's fitness to hold office or his competence on an executive level.

This is not a new phenomenon as we all know --- Bush* stated his intentions to invade Iraq during the second presidential debate in 2000, but he got his support mostly because he was "likeable," and when he actually invaded Iraq, people acted like he hadn't mentioned this before.

Here at DU we discuss the issues most of the time, but I'm sure you'll all agree that this place is the exception, not the rule. I have come to the conclusion that Americans for the most part allow opinions of political figures to be influenced by completely irrelevant and unimportant factors, while the issues and policies are completely ignored. Why is the election cycle this much of a beauty contest? Why do people not learn to listen to the candidates' positions when making a choice? Why are so many people OK with giving control of "The Button" to someone based on his completely superficial factors?

Why, why, why, why, why?

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

1. Your insight is amazing!

Kick...

[chocolateeater]

5. Yes it is.

O8)

[Castilleja]

7. Actually, your insight IS amazing!

And I think you are quite correct. Good Post!

[librechik]

2. It's that damn liberal media

they have to repeat our candidate's mistakes over and over lasciviously, out of context and with appropriate ridicule, to convince the public that they are even-handed and objective, not the card carrying commies they secretly are.

[slinkerwink]

3. what liberal media?

*snarf* doesn't even fucking exist anymore!

[boxster]

6. I believe that librechik was being sarcastic.

[Dudley_DUright]

11. She should use the term that Eric Alterman suggests,

the "So Called Liberal Media" easily abbreviated as the SCLM.

[StClone]

13. I think that's tongue in cheek

No matter who reports, or why, don't people have the sense to see that these guys are candidates after being fumbling humans first? Though I am not a guru on each candidate's position, I can move past the unimportant.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

8. I actually don't blame the media

While I agree that they over-report the shit out of stupid stuff like I mentioned, the American public has to be receptive to it for it to stick. A lot of the things that outrage us about the Bush* administration is out there in plain view, but it just doesn't seem to stick for a lot of people. Dick Cheney and Colin Powell have both said publicly that there was no connection between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, but half the population still thinks there was a link. I think the reported news is only as powerful as people's receptivity to what's being reported.

Something is amiss in our culture. Maybe there is just so much media saturation that people are incapable of keeping everything straight, and the only things that stick are the "broad strokes" of the candidates? In that sense, I'd say the media is a factor, but I wouldn't put the blame squarely on them. People are free to shut off the TV and read the New York Times or the Washington Post whenever they like.

[boxster]

4. It's all about timing. Clark's "gaffes" were early in his campaign,

giving him more than enough time to recover.

Dean's speech was at the worst possible moment - after a larger-than-expected loss in Iowa and a week before the NH primaries.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

14. Point taken

But what I find bizarre is that more is being made of Dean's scream than the fact that he had such a disappointing showing. His 3rd place finish, when a lot of people were expecting him to come in first, should have been the story, not the fact that he screamed into a microphone.

[boxster]

21. I may be in the minority, but I think they are related.

What I saw in Dean's speech was someone who was shocked by the results in Iowa overcompensating for that disappointment.

I strongly disagree with the people who claim he was having a good time, etc. What I saw watching it live was someone who was trying to put a happy face on something that couldn't be made happy. A 20% loss to Kerry was unfathomable to just about everyone, and to Dean, it had to be devastating.

From that perspective, I understand what he did, but the timing was horrible and the speech was just too much, especially in the context of the loss. My first (unfair, I'll admit) reaction was, "Geez, what a sore loser." Then, I realized that he was just overcompensating for his disappointment at losing.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

22. I gotcha

That makes sense. Let's just say I've observed more stuff about the scream than about his showing in Iowa --- it almost seems like a side issue.

[boxster]

25. You're exactly right. Everything has been about the scream, and very

little discussion about what the heck happened to drop Dean to 18% in Iowa, which is exponentially more important.

[corporatewhore]

9. The biggest dean gaffe was the Confederate Flag

i mean he cant talk about healing racial relations while waving the confederate flag .It would be one thing if it was his heritage but come on hes from park ave.!!!!!

[Ripley]

17. Show me proof that Dean waved a confederate flag?

That is an outright lie.

[corporatewhore]

18. i was using it as a metaphor "waving it while trying to heal racial

relations"

[Ripley]

20. Then you clearly misunderstood him or more likely

didn't even listen to the speech referring to people who have those flags, but instead chose to make a decision that he is racist based on something someone who is smearing said about him.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

19. He's just a big Lynyrd Skynyrd fan

Ha ha, just kidding. Anyway, are you saying that if he was from the south then he would be justified in glorifying the confederate flag? Besides, he never "waved" one, he TALKED about it.

[waylon]

10. Dean should have spent more time on the issues

I think that is good point. What else do people have to evaulate him on if everytime they pick up newspaper there is yet another story of dean sticking his foot in his mouth?

Spend less time screaming and more time talking about issues. And no, the war is not the only issue.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

16. The war isn't his only issue

I view him as more of a domestic-policy kind of guy.

[sandnsea]

12. A sandwich effects the Presidency?

This is what I'm talking about. Howard made a huge mistake and it wasn't the first time. And the response is to beat up everybody else. The mistake is bad enough, the immaturity in the response is even worse. It's just one more part of the entire campaign that has turned so many people off.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

15. Did you see the sandwich story?

I'm not a big Kerry fan myself but when I saw the Philly Cheesesteak story being reported upon I thought it was probably one of the silliest wastes of bandwidth I'd seen in a long time.

[ThirdWheelLegend]

23. "Only Dean opposed the war from the start"

And that was at least the second time Dean and his campaign lied on that subject.

Gaffes are one thing, lies are another.

I am not a Clark supporter.


TWL

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

24. OK

What does that have to do with the topic of this thread? And who said you were a Clark supporter?

[ajacobson]

26. Political scientists make careers out of this question

Since the day I got politically active I've wondered about how people make political choices and unfortunately for lots of people, logic is not the number one ingredient.

btw-good post, LDS.

[LittleDannySlowhorse]

27. Thank you

It's a little tragic, isn't it? Most of the things that have "lost" elections in the past are not really issues (Michael Dukakis in a tank is not an "issue", for example).

It is really upsetting that so many of our fellow Americans cast their votes based on vapors and suggestion as opposed to issues, and then spend the next four years complaining about the guy they elected.