host

If a political party is truly a "party of ideas", with "strong principles", and the ideology that it draws the majority of it's policy platform and support from, is "mainstream", shouldn't it enjoy broad coverage from independent, non-partisan news reporting outlets and commentary that embraces and advances it's message, from a spectrum of numerous and diverse broadcasting and print media, across a country as large as the US is?

Wouldn't a reliable, detailed plan for America's political and social future, stand on it's own merits, if it was inclusive and in the best interests of a broad majority....and wouldn't the architects of such a message of hope, fairness, and "good government", rely on the merits and integrity of their political and social "vision", to naturally drive it's distribution, via all of the major broadcasting networks, and via PBS, and independent political pundits and radio and TV talks show hosts?

If you answer is, "yes, one would think that it would be naturally distributed, in a free and open competition of ideas", do you wonder, as I do....what the following is "all about"? If your answer is, "no....I would not expect it to sink or swim on it's own....what is happening to facilitate the distribution of this "vision" is expected and necessary.....please post, why you think so.....

The "signs" of control.....and of a lack of diversity:

All of the featured (four....) multimedia "presentations" displayed at the
<b>The National Republican Senatorial Committee</b>
http://www.nrsc.org/Multimedia/ are prominently displayed as being televised coverage <b>from only one news broadcasting outlet, Fox News</b>

On the front page of the same website, there is a poll displayed:
Given that the committee handpicked by POTUS George Bush, chaired by close friend of Bush's father, the former US Sect'y of State, James Baker III, evaluated the situation in Iraq last year, and handed president Bush this conclusion, located on page 27 of the Baker ISG report:
....is it fair ....or inclusive for a political website that should represent all republican senators running for office, next year, to feature a poll that displays the language and sentiments as the one above does, considering that the "Senate Democrat Leader" got to be leader of the senate majority, because a majority of voters agree with the conclusions of the Baker ISG?
It was reported by a member of the ISG that president Bush asked no questions in the meeting where the ISG report was presented to him......and his actions since seem in direct conflict with the ISG advice to actively engage Iraq's neighbors, Syria and Iran, in diplomacy as a means to extricate the US military from a predicament in Iraq that cannot be improved by force of arms.....

Moving to the website of the party itself, the www.rnc.org homepage displays
in the upper right <b>"Action Center" column, </b>this link: <a href="http://www.rnc.org/GetActive/CallTalkRadio.aspx">Call Talk Radio</a>

The names and telephone numbers of 33 conservative talk show hosts are displayed on the rnc.org page located at the preceding link.

Imus, and two convicted felons, G. Gordon Liddy, and Ollie North, foxnews correspondent and commentator, (his conviction for lying to congress was overturned on a technicality, on appeal.) are on that RNC "talk radio" list.

This "group" is syndicated by Salem Comm., owned by two CNP members, as I've posted about here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...45&postcount=2
NY Times coverage of CNP, Council for National Policy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/us...gewanted=print

Hugh Hewitt Show
The Mike Gallagher Show
The Michael Medved Show
Bill Bennett's Morning in America
The Dennis Prager Show
Janet Parshall's America

Links to Salem's talk radio hosts info:
http://www.srnonline.com/
http://www.srnonline.com/talk/index..../shakehead.gif
Salem also owns www.townhall.com/columnists/


The Rush Limbaugh Show (Rush is in a class all by himself....)

Michael Reagan Show:
http://www.talkradionetwork.com/
The Laura Ingraham Show
Michael Savage Show
Dick Morris

....okay...I've listed about half of the RNC featured talk show hosts. What does it say about the RNC when nearly 1/6 of the talk show hosts that it encourages site visitors to contact, are syndicated by Salem, a company with top two executives who are involved in a secretive organization such as CNP?

Why is there so little ethnic or racial diversity, and no coverage by major news outlets, offered among the list of talk radio hosts listed on the RNC site?
With one unified message, distributed over and over, and heavily evangeclical christian influence at Salem's townhall.com and Salem radio, and among most of the rest......what does this political party offer to attract the majority of American voters?

Do republican senators and their political website, and the RNC.org and their talk show hosts, represent much more than a conservative, significantly evangelically oriented "base"? Does the avoidance of "all of the rest" of the US press and information distribution systems.....negative views of Hollywood, and embracing the notion that the media is too liberal, seems to leave a very narrow and redundant little information loop, but maybe that is the intent.

The question is, whether the "message" and the avoidance of an "open forum" of commentators and news coverage will aid the agenda to portray the "message" as being in the best interests of the most voters. I don't see how you can accomplish such a delivery and persuasion, within the confines of a minimally corrupted society, and expect to reach new supporters, or even keep the support of more centrist, less religiously involved, current members.

Is the real problem that the agenda, vision, and message, cannot stand, on it's own, out in the open, to be critiqued, reported on, and improved by broad examination and participation? What about the party that pushes the message from such an insulated perch?

shakran

Well I'd say that's a big ol' duh. Of course that's the real problem, and that's why the "RNC" relies on the "liberal media" to pound its message of bullshit into the gullible among us.

(I put RNC in quotations because the jackasses running around today claiming to be republicans are actually a new species called neocons, and bear little resemblance to a real republican)

loquitur

Your question is framed to answer itself. IOW it's circular.

roachboy

well, there are a number of ways to look at this.
the right has developed it own media apparatus over the past 20 years. its parameters have remained fairly constant: what has changed is the convergence of conservativeland's internal chatter with more mainstream political discourse--at its most appalling over the 2-3 years after 9/12/2001 (the digit is changed deliberately)--at this point, one way of seeing what has happened is that the discourse particular to conservative-land has lost any contact it once had with mainstream political discourse and so has effectively collapsed back onto its institutional infrastructure.

the linking of contact information to conservative mediasites is probably a residuum of the telemarketing innovation that was crucial in the rise of the xtian coalition as a political force across the 90s: generating the illusion of a grassroots movement by cold calling people, solliciting their opinions on a given issue and then offering to connect them directly to their congressman's office. which they did. it worked pretty well for them. they should thank ralph reed more often.

another way of approaching the question in the op is to consider the centrality of identity politics in the way the discourse of conservativeland operates. since so much of the discourse is rooted in identification, it would follow that the politics based on that discourse is more about identification than other types of argument. if that is the case, it follows that logical coherence, descriptive capaciousness, clear linkages between policy proposals and reliable data about the world are all secondary. on other words, i am not convinced that conservativeland is an evangelical sector when it comes to it own politics--it is more about the structuring of affect.

i put these up as ways to not see the op as tautological: this despite the fact that i see why loquitor would react as he did.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

host

I think, roachboy, that you have summed up exactly what the supporting examples that I included in the OP, indicate is happening.

The "goal" of the most influential conservatives was this:
I think that we are now getting to see the "culmination" of these "efforts". Conservatives of the Bozell "mindset", first set out to discredit the media.....to intimidate into telling "the story" the way they wanted it told. They ended up creating their own alternative, parallel media "universe". By necessity....I'm assuming because of their requirement that "the message" be uniform....tightly controlled, as it moved further and further AWAY from news reporting and commentary that was less inconsistent with what the more mainstream, current events and politically savvy, perceived as accurate accounts of events.

Now we see how "tiny" the effort has ended up being....reducing the republican senate reelection committee and the RNC to touting only the links we see on their webpages....dominated by foxnews and the CNP Salem Comm. "properties" and personalities....and they have "Rush" and Mike Reagan, too.

The positive that I see is that they've conceded the rest of the media to those in the mainstream. It isn't relevant or impressive anymore that, for example....our VP says that he "usually watches foxnews". With his 9 percent approval rating....who cares what he usually watches?

The "multimedia" page at the republican senator's political site, and RNC "call the talk show hosts" page, instead of achieving the intended result....a web presence for a "dynamic" political movement, makes it look more like a "fringe" movement with a small following lacking in mainstream media coverage from "names" (Networks and publications....) familiar to all of us....the ones that we grew up with. Since their best opportunity to grow their base is by reaching folks who are "up to now", not paying particular attention to politics or current events, how will the RNC media "offerings" compete with those of the rest of us, to build or sustain it's base? How will it enhance it's credibility?