"All that is old and already formed can continue to live only if it allows within itself the conditions of a new beginning."
Campaign '06: Ideas for Getting Informed
Posted 7:21 a.m., Oct. 18, 2006
|
To the listeners of Cities 97: Here is a list of ideas of where to look if you want to pay attention as Election Day draws near. This will allow you to be informed while turning off (the campaign ads), hanging up (on the pollsters) and shredding (those blasted campaign mailers). Cowabunga.
(By the way, here is the the Pioneer Press column I wrote with Tim Penny that prompted this morning's radio interview.)
Update: A quick note. Seems not everyone got the whole "Bingo, Bango, Bongo and Irving" riff I was on in this morning's interview. Of course, I was referencing "Gilligan's Island." As any fan knows, a mop-topped pop group (the Mosquitoes) decided to vacation on the island where the castaways were stranded. Gilligan was a big fan, but the band took such a shine to Ginger and Mary Ann that they got forced off the island, anticipating "Survivor" by several decades. The Mosquitoes were named Bingo, Bango, Bongo and Irving. Their big "hit" was He's a Loser, which bears more than a passing resemblance to the Beatles' "I'm a Loser." Just so you know....
...
The To-Do List
Let's point to some specific examples of really good media resources that you can look for in the coming weeks.
- Look for the human element. Find someone whose friendship you value, whose opinion you trust, and who disagrees with you politically, and have a reasoned discussion with that person about where they stand and why they believe what they believe. Two tricks to bear in mind: Listen carefully, not with a focus on what you're going to say in reply. And don't go into it trying to convince that person to believe things your way. Not gonna work. Just like you're not going to change your mind. But the "other side" might suddennly seem much more human to you. Really, try this.
- Tune into the debates. Make yourself do this. Listen, watch or attend at least one gubernatorial debate and at least one senatorial debate, then for extra credit, make sure to catch one debate for the congressional seat in your district. True, they're not really debates, they're nearly as choreographed as political conventions and "American Idol" segments, but these folks usually can't help themselves. They almost always give you some glimpse of who they are and what they believe, once you get below the polish and the defensive layer of bland rhetoric that they've been supplied by their keepers and consultants. It may not be unfiltered, but at least it hasn't been filtered by media editors, reporters and producers. There's value in tuning into these. Make yourself do it.
- Don't be afraid of the media. Go ahead and be skeptical, that's your right and your job as a citizen. But--contrary to popular right-wing belief--the media is not generally setting out to lie to you. They're trying to tell the truth, even if a shortage of time and staff won't permit them often to dig as deep as we'd like, and if the corporate bean counters are keeping them focused on Jessica Simpson instead of Michele Bachmann and Patty Wetterling. (That's kind of our fault, too, folks--we could demand better).
- Get TiVO. Or, as I have done, invest in personal video recorder service through your digital cable provider. The benefits are legion. For one thing, you can search through the schedule menu and even do keyword searches to find out when and where you can tune into those debates. For another, you can pause live TV, which means that when those dreaded campaign ads come on, you can pause them, get up and walk around the house for 30 seconds, come back, hit the live button, and skip those awful name-calling commercials. A life-saver. Good for relationships, too. If your wife starts blabbering about her day right in the middle of the climax of "Mythbusters," you can politely pause the broadcast, turn your attention to her, nod until she runs out of words, then go back to the show. Beautiful.
Update: Got the first of what I hope might be a number of suggestions about resources for prospective voters to check out.
- Watch WCCO-TV's "Reality Check" segment. It only comes on once a week, and I'm not even sure which day of the week.But WCCO's Pat Kessler is one of the absolute best, and these segments are generally very eye-opening and helpful. If you miss it on TV, the segments are available on the Web. And don't forget TPT's local gem of a public affairs program "Almanac," which has some of the best--and most deliberately civil--political talk anywhere in the nation. And if you miss the segments on TV, you can watch them on the Almanac Web site.
- Go to MPR.org's "Campaign 2006" Web site and explore away. You can explore the Senate, governor, Congress and attorney general statewide races, tap into MPR's "Meet the Candidate" profiles, and even take a quiz under on the site's Select a Candidate section to find out which candidate holds views that are closest to your own.
- Go local, to your neighborhood or city's local paper. In South Minneapolis, that means the Southwest Journal. Where I live in Bloomington, Minn., it's the Sun Current, one of the Sun community newspapers. They have a nice Election 2006 Web area that can provide you great information for your local suburban race, if you live in a Sun community. Virtually every little community has a valuable source of this kind.
- If you absolutely must look to the political polls, at least do yourself the favor of looking to more than one. I would suggest going to Taegan Goddard's blog The Political Wire. It's pretty good stuff on its face--Goddard is a Democrat, but pretty much a no-nonsense one, and his commentary is relatively measured. More important than anything he has to say, though, is the list of polling organizations he links to. Log onto his site, scan down the left hand margin to the "Pollsters" area, and go nuts.
Fear not the pundits. Some of the best information you're going to get, even drilling down to the statewide level, is going to come from the professional, national pundits. Check out Charlie Cook's The Cook Political Report Web site. He truly is a non-partisan, and tells it straight. Stu Rothenberg's Rothernberg Political Report is pretty dependable, too. Congressional Quarterly columnist Craig Crawford's Crawford's List leans a bit left, but he knows what he's talking about. And he's sometimes pretty funny.
- Since we're talking national pundits, a special plug for the Godfather, The Washington Post's David Broder, who often pays close attention to Minnesota.
- Factcheck.org. Say no more.
- What do you think email is for? There is virtually no serious news organization that doesn't provide you with some kind of targeted email news alert list that will funnel campaign news to you while you try to figure out who to vote for. This is invalauble. My personal favorite source--albeit one that is out of the reach of most citizens because of cost (I get the small media discount) comes from the National Journal. If you have the means to subscribe, you can tap into email newsletters of the magazine's "Ad Spotlight," "House Race Hotline," and "Poll Track." Great, great, great. Bummer it's so expensive.
- From my old cohort in electronic democracy, Steve Clift, come these very fine sources of election information. Wish I had remembered to include them in the first place. E-Democracy's E-Debates includes positions from the gubernatorial candidates not just from the three major Minnesota parties, but from three other "minor" candidates as well. The more the merrier. And while we're at it, a shout out to E-Democracy's Minnesota Elections page, and its My Ballot link, through which you can insert your Zip code and find out where it is that you're supposed to vote. Thanks, Steve!
I'll add more to this after the broadcast if I think of anything. Come back later to see if I have hit upon any other ideas. Or, feel free to send me your suggestions.
-- Kevin Featherly
