The answer: when it's being led by party insiders masquerading as "regular people." You may recall Jodi Kantor's NYT article, headlined "Gender Issue Lives On as Clinton's Hopes Dim", that was referenced in a front page diary. In it, we were presented with the views of women inside and outside of politics, about sexism and the role of gender in the Democratic primary. One quote that stood out as particularly galling:
Cynthia Ruccia, 55, a sales director for Mary Kay cosmetics in Columbus, Ohio, is organizing a group, Clinton Supporters Count Too, of mostly women in swing states who plan to campaign against Mr. Obama in November. “We, the most loyal constituency, are being told to sit down, shut up and get to the back of the bus,” she said.
Who is this self-starter, this grassroots organizer?
Is she just a Sales Director for Mary Kay cosmetics, as the NYT tells us? Or is she, as the always-obfuscatory Fox News chyron suggests, just a "Clinton Supporter," the implication being that she's just one of the electorate, Jane Q. Voter?
In short, no. She's not.
--She ran for congress in 1994 and 1996 by raising questions about her Republican opponent's sexuality. The same year, Bill Clinton gave her props in a speech at Ohio State.
--She is on the Executive Committee of the Franklin County Democratic Party, an position so important in local politics that a candidate for State Rep. cited her endorsement.
All this and more was picked up and discussed last week on No More Mister Nice Blog and Blogger Interrupted.
To refresh your memory, a few days prior to this latest flap, Ruccia had appeared on O'Reilly:
In this appearance, she accuses Howard Dean of running an "incredibly sexist" campaign and then cites, as support for this accusation, something Chris Matthews said. Go figure.
Obviously, O'Reilly and Fox didn't care what her background was, so they either didn't dig into it or willfully avoided mentioning it. I'd hope that the New York Times would be a bit more circumspect. Why wouldn't they look into her history and at least mention it. Maybe for the same reason they didn't think to ask Geraldine Ferraro exactly how Obama has run a "sexist campaign."
Anyway, from Nash McCabe to Cynthia Ruccia, I'm tired of watching the media dig only a hair's breadth beneath the surface in their quest to find average voters and grassroots types. Are they so afraid of getting out into the field and doing some work? And if they are, mightn't they give the ol' Google a spin?