Clark Takes On "Republican Mean Machine"
by Betsy R. Vasquez
http://moderateindependent.com/v2i3feb3.htmFEBRUARY 2, 2004 - This round of primaries is turning out to have much more of an open dynamic than the New Hampshire race.
There are seven races set to take place on Tuesday, and the outcome could be anything from an all out sweep by Kerry to a loss of lone frontrunner status.
One scenario has Senator Kerry winning all seven states, which is possible but doesn't seem all that likely. It seems at the very least that Edwards has a solid shot in South Carolina.
However, as Edwards has admitted, South Carolina is do or die for him, so a loss there and he is gone.
As for General Wesley Clark, as many as four states are in play for him: Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, and North Dakota.
Notice that number: 4 out of 7 states.
While some people have pulled back in interest from following the primaries as the story being told is that there is just one man, Senator John Kerry, running away with the nomination, by all reports these four states are all Clark/Kerry battles which could realistically tip either way. If Kerry some how pulls out wins in all four, the race could be all but done. But if Clark were to take all four, or even three of four, he could easily win as many states as Kerry Tuesday evening, or even more with Edwards very possibly taking South Carolina, and catapult undeniably into equal frontrunner status with the Massachusetts Senator..
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Missouri seems solidly Kerry country, as does Delaware.
Look at that again. Only Missouri and Delaware seem to be locks for Kerry. The other six he could lose all of. Or, of course, win all of. Kerry is in position in each of the seven races to pull of victories.
But truly Tuesday night we seem to have a window of opportunity, for General Clark in particular. The best case scenario for Edwards seems to be wins in South Carolina and a surprise win in Oklahoma. While the best case scenario for Clark is winning three or four out of the seven races.
The two biggest states are Missouri and Arizona.
In the meantime, the absolute media assault - much of it through simply ignoring his existence - continues. As a typical example, today's Washington Post does stories on Kerry, Edwards, and even Dean - who is not in position to win anything on Tuesday. Clark, who is in far better position than both Edwards and Dean, is entirely, again, ignored.
However, the Clark camp no longer is taking this without response.
At a rally in Oklahoma City this weekend, General Clark vowed to take on what he called, "The Republican Mean Machine," according to one supporter who attended the rally. By this he meant, this supporter said, the right-wing domination of the media and the hatred this machine spews.
Labeling it "The Republican Mean Machine" was a very smart maneuver, as it makes it a battle of him versus the Republican Party rather than versus the media, an easier battle for people to understand.
And yet, Clark is clear that by "The Republican Mean Machine" he means not just the ultra-baised FOX News/talk radio Axis Of Bias, but also the rest of the media, which is no different at this point. He in particular, according to this supporter, referred to MSNBC, saying that such networks were "trying to take him down," as the supporter put it.
This is the throwing down of the mantle that Clark had to commit if he was going to have any chance in this election. By not just vowing to fight "a long hard" battle against against the media machine, but making clear he means the whole media - even supposed mainstream stations like MSNBC - the Clark camp sent forth the battle cry that, at the very least, makes clear he will not go down without a fight. For Clark supporters, there has no been no better news this primary season.
Remember, the Zogby polls that MSNBC uses are the ones that were dubbed unworthy of use by both ABC and AP, as reported by the Washington Post, and, of course, by us last week. Clark's reference to MSNBC as part of the Republican Mean Machine possibly refers to this - the absurd polls pushing Kerry over Clark all week long. For instance, today's MSNBC/Zogby poll has Kerry leading Clark 36% to 24%, while other polls have the difference barely beyond the margin of error.
"Zogby International, does all kinds of controversial things to produce its headlines-grabbing tracking poll," the Post reported.
Among them, Zogby takes the results he gets - gotten by questionable methods to begin with - and simply alters them as he feels like.
"Zogby also adjusts his sample based on historic trends and his judgment of "what is happening on the ground" in a particular race, and it is this imposition of his own judgment that disturbs many pollsters.
"He will, for example, reduce the proportion of 18- to 24-year-olds in his sample of self-described likely voters if he suspects on the basis of past voting history and the "lay of the land" that a sample contains too many younger people. He also, on occasion, adjusts the religious composition of his sample if he suspects he has over or under-represented one faith. "
Nice little trick, huh? People with credibility don't think so.
"Zogby is not a reputable pollster," said Warren Mitofsky, who is co-directing the media exit polls this year for the major television networks and the Associated Press," and one ABC expert called Zogby polls, "crack for the weak."
This primary season MSNBC has teamed up with Zogby and Reuters and has been putting Zogby's polls front and center.
The main thing to note about Zogby polls is that by many accounts he comes up with results that push his agenda - which happens to be the Bush/Limbaugh Republican agenda. For example, as we detailed in this story, right before the New Hampshire primary he released a poll that claimed Dean had gotten within 3 points of Kerry even though, as we reported, he clearly knew this was not the case. The idea was to give Dean a sense a momentum, and so to push him higher in the polls so that he was not wiped out entirely and so Clark didn't have a shot at second place.
It has been one of many things that has driven Clark supporters crazy, to have to sit and watch polls that have been called disreputable nonsense and see virtually the entire media report his results above all others. Now, Clark has made clear he will not be putting up with this game any longer. And, according to the account we were given, he made the RMM comments directly in front of a rolling FOX News camera.
In any case, with one day of campaigning left, the simple reality is that it is up to the people on the ground. The battle is wide open. Any event over the next day could shift the balance. Most importantly, the Clark camp needs to make sure its supporters are not put off by a sense of doom driven by the media's anointment of Kerry. If they realize that their man truly can vault to the top on Tuesday night, they might just be able to follow their leaders charge and stick one in the eye of the Republican Hate Machine that has been doing everything possible to drive Clark out of the race.
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