Mr. Spock surely has a goatee where this fella lives.
Posted on 02/29/2012 12:15:43 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
With President Obama’s approval numbers rising, the traditional media has created a new issue it claims raises “political perils:” rising gas prices. Working in lockstep with Republican backers of the Keystone XL pipeline and the “drill, baby, drill” crowd, the media is inflating an issue that a close look at the facts shows has never swayed presidential voters, and will not do so next November.
Even worse, the media’s framing of the issue as putting Obama “on the defensive” is reactionary. It promotes the Sarah Palin view that environmental elites are stopping the United States from drilling its way to lower gas prices, ignores broad public support for alternative energy and fuels, and implies rising gas prices means Obama’s energy policies have failed. These retrograde attacks on environmental protection join similar assaults on birth control and women’s health in turning the 2012 election into a referendum on both the past and future.
The media echo chamber is in full force: “Will Rising Gas Prices Sink Obama,” “Could Higher Gas Prices Leave Obama Running On Empty,” “Higher Gas Prices Cloud Obama’s Re-Election Hopes,” “High Gas Prices: How Big a Problem for Obama”? and on and on.
What is the evidence for claims running throughout the media that high gas prices put Obama’s re-election at risk? According to the Christian Science Monitor (which unlike much of the media actually examined the underlying facts), “the last five times gas prices have spiked, the incumbent party has lost the presidential election.”
These five elections include 1976, 1980, 1992, 2000 and 2008.
In three of these contests -- 1980, 1992, and 2008 -- it was a weak overall economy that led to the incumbent party’s defeat, with rising gas prices playing no part in the outcome of any of these races.
Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, had the electoral vote stolen by Florida election officials and the Supreme Court. I doubt there is a single book among the many written about that election that cites rising gas prices as a key factor in the outcome.
The same can be said about the post-Watergate election of 1976, which was the first presidential election after the gas lines began and prices steeply rose in 1973. Gerald Ford ran a much closer race against Jimmy Carter than expected, so given all of the other Republican baggage that year gas prices were not seen as a critical factor.
It’s Still About the Economy
Before trumpeting the importance of rising gas prices, the media echo chamber was correctly pointing out that presidential elections are largely decided on the economy. Obama’s rising approval numbers coincide with the economy’s surprising gains in recent months, with some boost from the public’s closer view of possible Republican alternatives.
But instead of reframing the positive economic news into stories focusing on how Republicans can respond to this changing political environment (a subject nowhere near echoed as frequently as rising gas prices), the media returns to the four decades old message linking rising prices to excessive environmental protection.
Reporters would dispute my argument, arguing that they are simply quoting Speaker Boehner and other Republicans making such claims. But by giving such reactionary and untrue claims such broad promotion, the distinction between reporter and source is easily lost.
Simply put, the media is promoting a narrative designed to convince Americans that more drilling is the answer and that excessive environmental protection is the problem. And by claiming that Obama “is on the defensive” or is “forced to defend” such charges, the media leads readers to think: if Obama’s policies are sound, than why is he on the defensive? I guess his policies aren’t so sound after all.
Legitimizing Reactionary Views
Two months in to 2012 and its historic meaning is already clear: despite decades of public support for birth control, environmental protection and women’s rights, the media feels it must give equal voice to critics of all three because minority oppositional views are promoted by one of the nation’s two major political parties.
Recall that in 1980, the Reagan campaign had to rename “trickle-down economics” as “supply side economics” because the former, accurate phrase had bad connotations. Today, Rick Santorum can promote ending birth control and Mitt Romney can describe Arizona’s racist immigration law as a “model for the nation” without worrying about negative traditional media coverage outside the editorial pages -- positions that were once openly seen as sexist, racist or reactionary have become “mainstream.”
Frankly, I have been surprised at how aggressively Obama has challenged the drill, baby, drill crowd. The President has returned to his combative 2008 version, which is good to see even if it does not mean that he will abandon his passion for “bipartisanship” should he win a second term.
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Randy Shaw is author of The Activist’s Handbook and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century.
Mr. Spock surely has a goatee where this fella lives.
New RDNC motto.
If Mittens won't attack Bammy, but will attack US, what does that make him?
Still downplaying the contraception/abortifactent mandate issue as a political one, and not a religious issue. Unless the Pope is heading a new political party....
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