As the polls go up and down and I hear people's "back of the envelope" calculations about whether Dean or Clark can take not only the nomination but the presidency I've been thinking about the role the media and the RNC are playing in spinning our heads.
I really like Clark, and as I've said before I'd happilly work for him and support him. I've been factoring into my analysis, of course, the fantasy element that Clark is supposed to be more palatable than Dean to some "swing voters" or "independents" or centrist republicans. But how and why do we know that that is true? This seems to me to be largely an overall impression that we are given by the media and, of course, its also a self fulfilling prophecy. That is, as long as the media keep explaining to people how unnattractive Dean is, and how likeable the general is, how far to the left/pacifist Dean is, and by comparison how centrist/militarist Clark is, swing voters/independents/my republican relative have no option
but to choose clark or reject Dean. But is it the case that in a Clark/Bush matchup those valences would still hold? If you knocked out Dean as the "angry leftist" does Clark still hold the "nice guy centrist position?" I don't know if he does, if he can sucessfully define himself to the general electorate because to date the Democrats have done a stunningly bad job of seizing and holding the initiative in the media--of defining their own candidates. I've liked Dean because he didn't wait for anyone to define him, and he didn't lie down for the smearing he's taken, he's continued to go to the voters and try to define himself.
What do you all think? I'm curious to see how people think this plays out.