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Party
of Seven?
Monday’s
New York gubernatorial debate has been called many things,
from “bizarre” to a “circus” and a “farce.” And indeed, it
was theatrical, if not particularly deep or revealing.
If anything, the seven-way debate at Hofstra University did
reveal one more way in which serious minor-party candidates
are blocked from getting any serious media attention.
To be fair, even the Republican candidate, Carl Paladino,
came away from the debate frustrated, as the free-for-all
left him little chance to do what he really wanted to do:
Go head-to-head with front-runner Andrew Cuomo in the hope
that viewers across the state, focused on just the two major-party
candidates, would find Paladino more likeable than Cuomo (and
more likeable than he has appeared so far in his blustery,
blundering campaign). Instead, he had to strain to be heard
amid the sea of voices, just like everybody else.
Still, Paladino is the Republican nominee; he has lots of
money to spend on advertising, and he gets plenty of attention
from the media. The same cannot be said of the third-party
candidates, notably the two most serious ones, Howie Hawkins
and Warren Redlich.
In a way, the all-are-welcome format of the debate turned
Hawkins’ and Redlich’s pleas for inclusiveness against them,
as their ideas—thoughtful and well-articulated when given
the chance—were very nearly drowned out by the circus atmosphere,
and by the attention given to the three arguably more fringe
candidates. Not that Charles Barron, Kristin Davis and Jimmy
McMillan don’t have some worthwhile ideas themselves, but
they are clearly running as outsiders finger-poking the established
order, not serious candidates trying, at the very least, to
build visibility and credibility for their respective parties
and philosophies.
In a political season in which libertarianism has been temporarily
hijacked by right-wing Republicans running under the name
of the Tea Party, Redlich is a bona fide libertarian who expresses
its ideas much more eloquently than Paladino—who happens to
like big government when it gives his companies big subsidies—could
ever hope to. Hawkins, meanwhile, is the sort of Green Party
progressive that the mainstream Democratic establishment tries
to swat away like pesky flies (think Ralph Nader) so the Dems
can run in the center and not piss off their banker friends
while assuming that the party’s more progressive voters will
do as they’re told.
And the mainstream media just continue to play along and perpetuate
a system in which third-party candidates are swept aside to
clear the way for the two who have the most corporate backing.
News organizations sometimes defend their scant coverage of
outside challengers by claiming it reflects the degree of
voter interest in such candidates. Of course, there’s a bit
of a chicken-and-egg problem in that logic, but beyond that,
the media often remain silent on minor-party candidates, even
if their numbers start to pick up in the polls. Ross Perot—the
billionaire centrist who ran to the right of Bill Clinton
and to the left of George H.W. Bush in 1992—was an exception,
but Nader certainly was not. In September and October of 2000,
I conducted a content analysis of The New York Times
that showed the Old Gray Lady giving George W. Bush and Al
Gore roughly 32 times more coverage than Nader, even though
their poll numbers were only 8 times higher than his.
Look at how the Times handled its full page debate
preview in Monday’s print edition. The top half of the page
was devoted to a story on how Cuomo and Paladino (both pictured
at the top) were preparing for the debate, and what was at
stake for each. Message: Sideshow aside, this is a two-person
race.
The bottom half featured thumbnail sketches of the five minor-party
candidates, but even this was done unequally: Barron, Davis
and McMillan were given more space that Hawkins and Redlich
and were placed at the top. Their photos were more than twice
the size of the straightforward portraits of Redlich and Hawkins,
and more attention-getting: Barron was gesturing and pontificating,
Davis (the former madam) was displaying her ample cleavage,
and McMillan was sitting on the hood of a car wearing shades
and sporting his Hulk Hogan mustache. Message: These three
characters might make tonight’s debate interesting. Never
mind the dullards at the bottom—they might have ideas.
And you might have thought debates—and campaigns, for that
matter—were about ideas. Well, think again. I mean, don’t
think. Just vote. Democratic, or Republican.
—Stephen
Leon
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