Matt Taibbi on the meaning of Election 2004

[BurtWorm]

"When one hundred million people don't vote," Taibbi quips, "the nation is not bitterly divided. The nation mostly doesn't give a shit."


http://www.salon.com/books/int/2005/05/12/taibbi/print.html

[BurtWorm]

1. "the ethos of the campaign is that you have to talk down to people"

Taibbi continued:

The biggest problem with the campaign was that it was so condescending. John Kerry is not a stupid guy. He's been in the Senate for 20 years, sitting on important committees. But then all he does is get up on stage and say, "John Kerry, reporting for duty." It's just condescending. This is a conscious choice on his part -- the ethos of the campaign is that you have to talk down to people, you have to appeal to the basest instincts of voters, their laziness -- their intellectual laziness. An important thing about the candidates is that they don't tell you anything: All they want to do is hit those dial survey words they know are going to impress voters. Change. Leadership. Strength. These are literally infantile concepts that they want to communicate to you.

The kind of journalism I do is supposed to be funny, but in kind of a horrifying way. I figured the presidential election would be a great subject. But I had never covered a story where I couldn't find a way to express how bad it was. In Russia, I would see these horrible, ridiculous things, and at some level I was actually amused by them. I was able to find them funny but also horrible. In America I didn't really find it amusing; it was just horrible.

[BurtWorm]

3. "They felt Dean would have turned out the kids. "

(Taibbi infiltrated the Bush campaign in Florida to send dispatches to Rolling Stone)

"When I was in Florida volunteering for Bush, this came up quite a bit. Everybody there was so glad Kerry was the nominee. They all said the same thing: Thank God it wasn't Howard Dean. They felt Dean would have turned out the kids."

[NYCGirl]

2. I want to read this book! NT

[BurtWorm]

4. See Post # 3

;)

[NYCGirl]

5. Yes, I read the article on Salon this morning. Taibbi doesn't really spare

anyone, it seems. Looks fascinating.

[IrateCitizen]

6. Oh man! Prepare yourself for flamage from the Kerry faithful!

In New Hampshire, I saw Kerry, many times, just go up to anybody who had on an Army outfit and start talking about Vietnam -- he had such a hard-on for his Vietnam past that he was always looking for any pretext to bring it up. So I started showing up at campaign events with POW-MIA shirts on, stuff like that, hoping that I would fall into his line of fire long enough for him to pull that stunt with me. I did it four or five times, but he never talked to me.

I did see him go up to another guy -- I had my POW-MIA costume on, but there was another guy in a hunting outfit, all orange, big orange hat, vest, everything. Kerry went up to that guy and said, "Were you in the service?" "No," the guy replied, "I'm a fucking hunter."

The sad thing is, I think that Taibbi, in spite of his visceral dislike of John Kerry, is pretty much dead-on. A large number of Kerry voters simply could not get the least bit excited about him as a candidate. I know I couldn't.

[BurtWorm]

8. Taibbi may be a bit over the top on his dislike or hatred even of Kerry

but it feels kind of good to hear someone vent like that. I've tried not to do that myself on DU, though I can get into it outside of this place.

[NYCGirl]

7. Here's an large book excerpt from alternet:

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21761/