Isaac Chotiner over at the New Republic published a great article that will most likely get over looked amongst all the election news. It's titled: 24 Hours Of Fox News, What can we expect from the channel over the next four years? Lots and lots of anger. Mr. Chotiner writes that with little time remaining until the election, he sat down last week to watch as much Fox News as he reasonably could over a 24-hour period. This is hwat he saw and his prediction for the next 4 years.
As one might expect with Barack Obama so close to the presidency, the channel is in full nuclear meltdown mode; I was afraid the stench of desperation would waft out of the television set and into my studio apartment. Fox is going ballistic for good reason: These days, absolutely nothing is going right--in both declensions of the word. The paroxysms I witnessed hinted at an answer to a critical question: What will the opposition media look like during an Obama administration?
Isaac Chotiner continues to write that:
In this hour of GOP discontent, a split has occurred in the American right. It roughly looks like this: One group of conservative intellectuals--David Frum and David Brooks come to mind--has argued that the Republican Party is out of step with the country and unwilling to advocate an agenda for middle-class Americans. For its troubles, this faction has been attacked by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, who accuses Barack Obama of fomenting racism and lately seems to exist, along with his 20 million listeners, in his own universe. Limbaugh and his ilk (Andrew McCarthy and Mark Steyn on National Review's The Corner, radio host Mark Levin, and others) think the Republicans have run a weak campaign, and need to exhibit more anger and aggression in their confrontations with Democrats and the media. (Signs of clique membership: adoring Sarah Palin; cursing McCain for not bringing up Jeremiah Wright.)
As the right's main television outlet, Fox News's role in this debate--which is certain to become more heated after Tuesday--will heavily influence conservatism's next four years. And if my marathon watching session is any indication, Fox has chosen its side in the conservative civil war. Not so much partisan as simply angry, Fox looks to be cocooning itself: Boosting McCain's policies and character has taken a backseat to chronicling the obsessions of right-wing talk radio and blogs. (This is the crucial difference between Fox and MSNBC, which is remarkably good at staying on Obama's message.) To watch the channel in the final days of Decision 2008 is to enter a world where ACORN, media bias, Obama's campaign financing, and Fox News itself are the central storylines of the election. Once the network of optimistic, flag-waving jingoism, Fox has become a beacon of sky-is-falling fury.
I think this is important for the following reasons. Between talk radio, the club for growth, and FOX news I don't think conservatives will give a dam about Obama winning a mandate. They will not cooperate with an Obama administration. In fact I would venture a guess that they will conspire to primary anyone from the GOP who attempts to cooperate with Obama. In the senate Obama can only count on Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Arlen Specter (occasionally) for help. Sen. Martinez from Florida will help once in a while but he is verry worried about being primaried. This is especially true if the GOP goes into full anti-immigrant mode (does Cuba open up during Obama 1st term?). I'm of course assuming Senators Norm Coleman and Gordon Smyth go down.
In the house I doubt there are more then maybe a dozen cooperative GOP house members (Mike Castle? R-DE), will Chris Shays go down? The right will stick together refuse to help Obama then blame OBAMA for not reaching out, and passing party line votes! We on the left need to be very vigilant on fighting this narrative. Bush never reached out in compromise yet was able to blame dems for not coming along with him. The GOP over the next four years will do the exact opposite.
On other programs, too, I was surprised at how often McCain campaign talking points were disregarded and how eagerly aggrieved solipsistic self-reference and far right-wing obsessions were indulged. Take, for example, Brit Hume's 6 p.m. show, "Special Report," which always ends with a panel of pundits discussing what they believe to be the two biggest issues confronting the nation. After a day in which the McCain people had been hitting Obama on taxes repeatedly, Fred Barnes, Mort Kondracke, and Charles Krauthammer discussed media bias and Obama's record-breaking (and promise-breaking) fundraising over the past few months.
Even the network's policy discussions seemed to go off-rail. Earlier in the afternoon, Shepherd Smith, the relatively straight-shooting host of two news programs, conducted a down-the-middle discussion with Fox reporters Major Garrett and Carl Cameron about each candidate's tax plan. But then, a few minutes into a conversation, Smith reported on Joe the Plumber's campaigning in Florida. It was almost as if the race now had a legitimate third-party candidate. The tax discussion reconvened, but was then interrupted again by Joe the Plumber talk. Smith had gotten word that Joe would be appearing within the hour on the program. You could sense the excitement in the studio; Smith would mention the upcoming event a few more times before it actually occurred. At this point, however, I began to wonder how happy the McCain camp could be with this turn of events. A discussion about taxes and the two candidates that was on relatively favorable ground for the Republican was shunted aside to focus on the man who has become a much bigger right-wing folk hero than McCain could ever dream of being. Sean Hannity's continuing obsession with Bill Ayers presents the same problem: The McCain campaign has tried to move on to more fertile ground (the Ayres attack backfired in the polls), but right-wingers like Hannity will not get off the case. Moreover, Smith was forced to bring up Joe's affirmation of a voter's charming comment that a vote for Obama was a vote for the death of Israel.
Expect the rise of the angry right into full view. Democrats will be called communist and socialist on national TV over and over. As I states earlier there are so few SAFE moderate republicans (safe from primary challenges) left that there will be very few bipartisan bills, especially in the house. Blue dog dems in the south will be victims of all sorts of horrendous allegations, as the GOP will try to retake the house not by moving to the center but by trying to regain seats in the house from the right.
Expect many more years of the type of nasty stories we have seen the lest few months, not less. The right will try and stereo type Obama mush like they did Duval Patrick Gov. of Massachusetts. Avoid any large scale redecoration of the White House (yes even though every other first lady has has this right) it will be reported as new "bling". Get a competetant press crew (avoid the David Dinkins mistake). I would like Howard Wolfson in this job, he is tough and on message at all times. Most especially don't expect a honeymoon, there will be none!
But let's not count our chickens before they hatch. Get out and vote, volunteer (it's not to late), we have an election to win!
UPDATE
Paul Krugman writing in a New York Times column titled: The Republican Rump further echos this sentiment:
You might think, perhaps hope, that Republicans will engage in some soul-searching, that they’ll ask themselves whether and how they lost touch with the national mainstream. But my prediction is that this won’t happen any time soon.
Instead, the Republican rump, the party that’s left after the election, will be the party that attends Sarah Palin’s rallies, where crowds chant "Vote McCain, not Hussein!" It will be the party of Saxby Chambliss, the senator from Georgia, who, observing large-scale early voting by African-Americans, warns his supporters that "the other folks are voting." It will be the party that harbors menacing fantasies about Barack Obama’s Marxist — or was that Islamic? — roots.
Why will the G.O.P. become more, not less, extreme? For one thing, projections suggest that this election will drive many of the remaining Republican moderates out of Congress, while leaving the hard right in place.
For example, Larry Sabato, the election forecaster, predicts that seven Senate seats currently held by Republicans will go Democratic on Tuesday. According to the liberal-conservative rankings of the political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal, five of the soon-to-be-gone senators are more moderate than the median Republican senator — so the rump, the G.O.P. caucus that remains, will have shifted further to the right. The same thing seems set to happen in the House.
Also, the Republican base already seems to be gearing up to regard defeat not as a verdict on conservative policies, but as the result of an evil conspiracy. A recent Democracy Corps poll found that Republicans, by a margin of more than two to one, believe that Mr. McCain is losing "because the mainstream media is biased" rather than "because Americans are tired of George Bush."