Now that the ridiculousness is over, I'd like to take a moment to reflect back upon the genius of Obama's week-long VP extravaganza. I feel obligated to do this because of the many critical comments I made toward the end of last week as it became apparent Obama was not going to announce until the weekend. I felt, and repeatedly opined that announcing on the weekend, leaving only a Sunday before Denver, foolishly compressed the event and reduced its visibility. I once again failed to give proper credit to Obama's people, who engineered a press spectacle that will be studied for generations.
By the time Friday afternoon rolled around, the weekday press had realized they were not going to get the first crack at the story, and started spinning ever more hysterical theories as to who the nominee would be. Chet Edwards and Hillary Clinton suddenly rocketed to the forefront of the echo chamber as camera crews camped out in the front yard of Evan Bayh's Indiana residence.
As Friday afternoon ended and evening set in, the weekday media signed off and the twenty-four hour cable news took over. We were treated to endless clips of "journalists" checking their BlackBerrys and reporting that nothing has changed. As the night wore on, a steady stream of leaks kept the conversation current. First, sources inside Gov. Kaine's office reported he was called and told it wasn't him. Then Bayh's office confirmed that he was out of the running. Five minutes later, Bayh's front lawn was dark and vacant, and the Indiana senator was thrust back into obscurity.
Marc Ambinder over at The Atlantic was the first to report on a charter flight from Chicago-Midway to New Castle, DE, speculating it was there perhaps to pick up a Veep nominee. Finally, ABC reported at around 10:50 p.m. that the U.S. Secret Service had been dispatched to Senator Biden's house. At 12:45 a.m., CNN confirmed that Biden had been selected, triggering the 3:00 a.m. text by the Obama camp, which had originally been scheduled for 8:00 a.m. ET.
By drawing the revelation out until the last possible moment, the Obama camp took advantage of the 24-hour news cycle, forcing the reporting to become ever more urgent, with every non-development trumpeted as "game-changing." Given a single topic and nothing but time, CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews went wild, lending greater stature to a mostly symbolic event. The publicity was intense and positive, and the relief following the revelation was profound. The Springfield rally the next day was almost a catharsis, a celebration of the end of the spectacle.
The Obama campaign turned what could have been seen as a "safe," uninspired choice into a media event that made Biden seem like the most important man in America. The Saturday announcement will transition across Sunday into the Monday Convention debut, blunting the kind of second-wave negativism that usually follows Veep announcements. The strategy was brilliantly planned and flawlessly executed; what remains to be seen is whether it will prove effective in the long-term.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
They say that absurdity is the sincerest form of parody. Or is it the other way around? I forget. But seriously, Erich, not having puzzled out your fundamental objectives, I can't, thus far, credit your work with the noble intentions I suspect are there, but I can say that your reporting on the campaign does a remarkable job of bringing into focus the role of mainstream media in the displacement of a valid political process using all the elements of vacuous tabloid drama. What your pages lack, as yet, is any critical analysis of how effectively these showtime theatrics are undermining and obstructing the authentic efforts to reverse a pandemic expansion of economic injustice, and how completely they are smothering any small, lingering hope for an eventual civic redress of both current and pending abuses of power. While your reporting has done a thorough job of describing and exposing the symbiotic relationship between the media frenzy manufactory and their rubber-stamped faux candidates, you continue to fall short of stepping to the plate and calling out its destructive nature. You lay bare the problem, and then fail to identify it as such. Try conducting this experiment. As you watch the ubiquitous convention coverage in the next few weeks, count the number of times the cameras pan to the thousands of demonstrators and protesters gathered in cages outside the walls of the circus tent. Add to it the number of times a correspondent steps outside to single out one of these men or women, inviting him to explain the nature of his grievance or describe the personal sacrifices she had to make in order to be there to shout in silence. When you get it tallied up, report back to us.
Post a Comment