Let's begin with this headline (from Reuters, which appeared today, which I did not write:)
Romney leads Paul in Iowa poll, Santorum surges
ReutersBy John Whitesides and Steve Holland | Reuters - 14 hrs ago
... (A) closely watched poll, which has a strong track record in Iowa races, showed Rick Santorum surging past Newt Gingrich into third place in a fluid race where 41 percent of likely caucus-goers said they could still change their minds...
The link to the story is below. That headline, the quote I picked out from story, and an Iowa headline that is captured on the front page of the Kos today ("Santorum's late spurt another stunning turn") ... all these lead me to believe that the traditional press is a lot more "hep to the jive" than we think they are. (Referring to it as "a fluid race?" That's just rubbing Santorum's face in it, thank God most readers aren't in on the joke.)
But here's something they probably don't know. It's something that may explain why Santorum is beating the hell out of Michele Bachmann (stuck at around seven points in most Iowa polling, despite heavy campaigning in the state since last summer.)
(CONTINUED)
I realized this morning (New Year's Day) that I've been missing a very vital source of political information in Iowa--for months!
I haven't been listening to evangelical radio broadcasting in Iowa--and I should have been doing that, on and off, ever since Michele Bachmann announced her candidacy for the presidency.
In fact, every reporter, editor or activist who wants to know the probable identity of the eventual Republican nominee for president of the United States--should have been doing that, all along.
And we should be doing the very same in the other early primary states, too. You find the biggest evangelical radio outlets in those state (preferably stations own by the national Salem Network) and listen to their broadcasting. Not the syndicated "sermons" programming, but the programming aimed at local and regional audiences. This is hosted by local radio personalities and generally goes out in the afternoons--the content is "conservative talk radio style" discussion of culture, national and regional politics and issues of the day.
I'm having a "duh" moment here, because I realized that I'd been doing that to cover the rise of Michele Bachmann for years. The way that the local conservative evangelical radio outlets talked about Bachmann, promoted Bachmann's career, "sold" Bachmann to their evangelical political audiences as a trustworthy, "godly" woman...enabled me to predict her probable rise.
Similarly, listening to Iowa's conservative evangelical radio broadcasting (via the Internet, for example) might have enabled me to predict the problems she's having in the primary.
I don't know, because I haven't checked out this theory. But it worked like a charm in Minnesota for seven years or so, and I commend this system to reporters and students of politics who want to know what really is going to happen in government and elections in states where conservative evangelical voters form a coherent and influential bloc.
The problem is...I've never been able to convince anyone else to adopt this incredibly reliable system of predicting political trends in the state and national Republican parties (and in national political policy, where there's a Republican legislature.) Broadcasters on conservative evangelical radio chains are heard "selling" audiences on some political position or some candidate...and, as if by magic, the Republicans come out for that position or that politician's fortunes rise.
My friends on the liberal and progressive side of the aisle dismiss the conservative evangelical broadcasting as talk radio propaganda and pseudo-Christian lies and they turn it off when they hear it--which (to me) is kind of like tossing a real-live working crystal ball out of the window. And professional media don't want to cover the incredibly influential propaganda that goes out over the air every day--it seems that (to them) any kind of water cooler gossip that they hear in state capitols or politicians' offices is more significant than listening to an information network specifically designed to win elections.
But I blew it too, this time, by not monitoring evangelical broadcasting in Iowa. Mitt Romney may be the eventual nominee, but he will almost certainly lose to Obama if the national evangelical right doesn't get behind his "Mormon, Obamacare-inspiring" candidacy. We will know what is likely to happen, if we listen to what the evangelical right are being told by their propagandists, now.
And the fall of Bachmann's popularity and the recent rise of Santorum might have been foretold if I had been listening in Iowa, as I have in Minnesota. Because the national evangelical right can "make" a Bachmann or Santorum and deliver a constituency with just a little puffing; similarly it can "break" a Bachmann or Santorum simply by soft-pedaling one in favor of another.
My problem is that for about seven years--I've never been able to convince my peers in Dem and liberal and progressive political junkiedom that they have to listen to that broadcasting--to figure out what's like to happen in election trends and what's likely to happen to national policy initiatives. Even people who blog digital reams about the religious right seem reluctant to tune in and hear what these generals are telling the troops to do tomorrow.
Amazing, but this reluctance to hear the orders they give to our troops does explain why this numerical minority continues to beat up on us at election time--and stop progressive initiatives, regularly.
LINK:
http://news.yahoo.com/...