All eyes are on the Dems this week as they try to make their first grand and unified case for the party’s nominee.
I’ve been watching FOX News coverage of the convention so far, and they have done an amazingly powerful job raining on the Dems’ parade: profiling that infamously You Tubed Clinton-supporter, Harriet Christian, who is at the Denver convention this week solely to insist on the fact that she will definitely go for McCain (no matter what Hillary says) as a vote against sexism; interviewing Don Imus to find out why the shock-jock will vote for McCain even though Imus likes Joe Biden — it’s because Imus believes (ironically?) that Obama is a big “phony”; highlighting all the many reasons why the convention seems to be doing little in terms of creating an anticipated “bounce” for the Dem ticket; exposing the hidden infighting between Clinton and Obama; emphasizing that the polls seem to be “favoring” McCain this week; and explaining to viewers why the convention is already failing to convince many Americans.
I’ll watch MSNBC tonight, and I anticipate the tales will be quite differently pitched. We’ll see.
People aren’t stupid. But they love stories. And storytellers. That’s a small part of just what makes us human. And when it comes to this November’s election, the best stories will probably win.
Those stories don’t necessarily have to be true. But they’ve got to be well wrought, plausible enough, and persuasively rendered. And some of the most effective stories we have are the ones claiming that their very endings have already been written, pre-ordained.
I’ll see what tales MSNBC offers about the same convention tonight.
