Posted on 01/05/2003 1:14:16 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
NEW YORK -- Influential Democrats, worried that their party has been outgunned in the political propaganda wars by conservative radio and television personalities, are scouring the nation for a liberal answer to Rush Limbaugh and the many others on the deep bench of Republican friends.
For years, Democrats have groused about their inability to balance what they see as the increasing influence over the electorate by advocates of Republican policies.
But they say their concerns have taken on a new urgency because of the rise to the top of the cable news ratings by the Fox News Channel, considered by liberals to have a conservative slant, and the loss of the Senate to the Republicans in November. Some Democrats say the election outcome enhanced the influence of Fox News and personalities like Limbaugh.
The efforts among influential Democrats, particularly liberals, range from a grass-roots talent search for progressive radio hosts to the creation of think tanks to provide a Democratic spin for the news media, to nascent discussions by wealthy supporters about starting a cable network with a liberal bent.
People working on these projects acknowledged they were venturing into territory where liberals have failed and failed again, most notably with the short-lived radio programs of Mario Cuomo and Texan Jim Hightower, not to mention Phil Donahue's struggling, liberal talk show on MSNBC.
However, they said, the recent Republican gains have perhaps set the backdrop for the emergence of an angry liberal who could claim the same outsider status that worked so well for Limbaugh in the early 1990s.
The hurried efforts by Democrats to find more powerful media voices comes after years of carping but little action.
"If you start from the premise that the message was right, which we do, then the problem was that it wasn't getting out to the people," said one official of the Democratic Party who spoke on condition that his name not be used.
With that sentiment, there is a sense within the leadership ranks that the party erred in not building a media support system after the 2000 presidential election, when it lost the media coordination of the Clinton White House.
"Across the board, we need to muscle up," said John Podesta, the former White House chief of staff for Bill Clinton and now a law professor at Georgetown University. "That means from the congressional operations to the party committees to the think tank world to, most significantly, beefing up our capacity to communicate with the public in all forms of media, not just through obscure Internet Web sites but on television and radio."
For his part, Podesta is discussing with Internet entrepreneur Steven T. Kirsch and others the creation of a liberal version of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative research group that, along with others of its kind, is credited with helping start the modern conservative movement.
The foundation is part of a circuit of influential conservative groups that are credited with helping to hone a singular conservative message, bolstered each Wednesday at back-to-back meetings held by Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform, and the conservative activist Paul Weyrich. Those meetings are monitored and at times attended by some conservative commentators, columnists and Internet writers.
Democrats have long claimed that the circuit has corralled conservative thinkers, and more importantly, conservative media, into a disciplined message of the week that gets repeated attention from Web sites like The Drudge Report, Limbaugh's radio show, Fox News' prime-time talk shows and the editorial pages of The Washington Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Kirsch, chief executive of the Propel Internet service and a prominent Democratic fund-raiser, said the foundation he and Podesta envision would do the same for liberals.
"During the last 10 years the opposition has become more organized and the liberals haven't adapted to counter it," he said. "We will have components that will include messaging, message delivery and coordination of progressive groups so progressives will speak with more of a unified voice."
But if history is any guide, the soil may not be fertile. Liberal radio programs have not worked very well in the past. Liberals and conservatives said they believed this was in part because the most prominent liberal hosts have tended to present policy issues in all of their dry complexity while refraining from baring fangs against their conservative opponents.
"Most liberal talk shows are so, you know, milquetoast, who would want to listen to them?" said Harry Thomason, the Hollywood producer who is close to Clinton. "Conservatives are all fire and brimstone."
Go for it Dems!
But wait, don't you already have Begala and Carville. Who could be more angry than they?
Or what about Daschle's rants, they really took him a long way toward maintaining the Democratic majority in the Senate.
I think if you look at Rush, Bill O'Reilly or any of the conservative hosts that have achieved popularity, you'll find more humor, or at least sarcasm, in their approach than anger.
The American people don't want anger, they want truth and straightforward answers.
Yea anybody right now can tune into NPR and listen to Diane Rehm, Terry Gross, or Tavis Smiley. Yawnnnnnnn, ...................................... sorry I fell asleep at the keyboard.
Talk about misleading...I'd like the author to name 3 influential Democrats who are not liberal. I'll just wait here......... (Insert theme music from Jeopardy)
One of the reasons that liberals fail at talk radio is that they are incapable of having a discussion without injecting their philosophy into it, and giving an example of how one of their icons reacted to the matter under discussion. Whenever a debate appears to be turning away from their "touchy-feeley" answers, they invoke either Clinton, FDR or JFK and what they either did or proposed.
Bwaa-ha-ha-ha!
...prominent liberal hosts have tended to present policy issues in all of their dry complexity while refraining from baring fangs...
LOL!
Ain't it silly?
Liberals perceive themselves as being so complex and so circumspect. The delusional pomposity of these people is always good for a chuckle.
What, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings aren't enough?? Not to mention Cocoa Roberts, Nina Totebag, Katie Colonic, Bowel Moyers, et. al.?
I can nominate any number of very STRIDENT liberal voices for their consideration. But I can't think of many who are STRONG. It may have something to do with the moral paucity and intellectual weakness of their message.
At one point, a FReeper representative was attending at least one of those meetings. I was fortunate enough to be invited to a party at Grover Norquist's home after last year's CPAC, where I was entertained (and informed) by a lengthy conversation with Grover Norquist Sr., who was a security analyst under the Reagan administration. Radio Free Republic also interviewed Grover Jr. as part of its CPAC coverage.
Nothing terrifies the Left more than Truth off the leash.
Shall I tell them or should you, or better yet, just let them keep thinking that?
True.
Imagine their outrage if the taxpayers were funding broadcasting that was as conservative as PBS and NPR are liberal.
Precisely why any "official" 'rat talk show will be heavily screened to prevent a rational caller. It'll be an audio DU thread.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.