( – promoted by Clark)

We all know that this should be a Democratic year, but it is a fact that we could still loose the White House.  How could this happen?  Racism, petulant Hillary supporters, you name it.  But one of the most important reasons could be the efforts of our corrupt, corporate media to prevent a Democratic victory that could cost them big.

Clark, in his Aug. 23 diary on the selection of Joe Biden as Obama’s new running mate, notes the comments of the AP Washington Bureau Chief, Ron Fournier, who provided a “craptacular AP “analysis” … on why this is a terrible pick for Obama.”  But Fournier’s awfulness goes far deeper than even the rather alarming examples Clark provides.

Mother Jones‘ Mojo Blog describes Fournier’s journalistic philosophy as:

…enthusiasm for what he calls “accountability journalism”-a more aggressive style of writing and reporting intended to hold the rich and powerful closer to the fire. “The AP’s hard-earned reputation for fairness and nonpartisanship must not be used as an excuse for fuzzy language when a clear voice is demanded,” Fournier wrote last summer, in an internal newsletter to AP employees. “Nor should it force us to give both sides of a story equal play when one side is plainly wrong.”

At first blush this does not seem too different from what many progressives claim to want journalists to do:  play an active role in getting to the truth rather than reporting in a “he said, she said” manner.  However, Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert provides a detailed analysis that shows Fournier’s practice of “accountability journalism” to be riddled with unsubstantiated attack rhetoric directed exclusively at Democrats.

More below the flip – Clark.

Boehlert further asserts that:

That ethos seems to have been adopted by the larger AP political team, which, honestly, writes as if it’s completely in the tank for McCain. “Atrocious” is how Talking Points Memo blogger Josh Marshall has classified the wire service’s campaign performance this year …

Why, you ask, would an old and venerable news service like the AP lend itself to such abuses? And Julia of Firedoglake provides the likely answer:  

… The question is, why does the AP have a Ron Fournier problem? Could it be because William Dean Singleton, the Chairman of the AP Board and a man who owns a lot of newspapers, has a Democrat problem?

…

See, Mr. Singleton has a bit of a Cause. He’s a big fan of relaxing the FCC regulations banning cross-media ownership.

We all know that many Democrats have, up to this point, successfully stymied Mr. Singleton in his pursuit of this cause.  Specifically,

The Senate measure [to prohibit cross-media ownership] drew 27 cosponsors, including Democrats Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois.

Boehlert’s Media Matters piece demonstrates that Clinton, Edwards and Obama were special targets of Fournier’s spleen during the primary.  

But what about John McCain?  Boehlert notes that:

Republican John McCain of Arizona, another presidential hopeful, was not a cosponsor.

In fact:

It was McCain who personally and aggressively promoted Michael Powell to serve as FCC chair, and who defended Powell’s attempts in 2003 to rewrite media ownership rules according to a script written by industry lobbyists.

And–wouldn’t you know–Boehlert continues:

I simply cannot find any evidence that Fournier has ever written about McCain in the way he has when he personally attacked Clinton and Obama this year.

So, in summary, we have a big media outlet that is determined to use its power to control information to defeat Democratic politicians who threaten its profits.  More significantly, this media outlet, the AP, has found the perfect tool to engineer its hit on the Democratic party in Ron Fournier.  

So, once again, what can we do?  Well, MoveOn.org is gearing up to take Fournier on.  They are trying to organize an email campaign to protest his practices to AP at the following addresses.

Michael Oreskes, AP Managing Editor, mOreskes@ap.org

Ron Fournier, AP reporter and Washington D.C. Bureau Chief, rfournier@ap.org

I think this may be useful only as a way to generate publicity about the AP abuses since the narrative above suggests that the rot goes deep in the organization.  But I would also suggest writing to your local paper (in my case the St. Louis Post-Dispatch) and complaining about their use of AP stories.

UPDATE:  This dailykos blogger also thinks that contacting your local paper and complaining about their use of the AP service is a good idea–but he/she has a lot more good information about why this is so.

Update II.  I noticed that I had omitted a link to the Firedoglake posting referenced above so I added it as well as fixing a non sequiter I noticed in the text.

So John McCain is going to be in O’Fallon next Sunday, August 31, along with Romney and Huckabee.  From talking to a few of the people who’ve organized protests the last few times he’s been around the area, I think there will be some response to his event, but as far as I know none of the details have been determined yet.

Anyway, I’m not expert in messaging, but below the flip I want to offer a couple thoughts on what I hope the messaging will be, based on what I’ve seen during the last couple visits.

My main gripe with the past two “responses” organized by local progressive groups (SEIU, Pro-Vote, etc) is that they combine their rallies with having Democratic politicians speak.  I personally think think this is a mistake, and here are the reasons why…

1.  The press will always cover the Democratic response, so there’s no point in having a “rally” to go along with it.  In the name of balance, the media will always include the Democratic response in their articles, even if the Democratic response is simply a press conference where they read a statement.  So what’s the point of organizing a rally for something that will be covered anyways?

2.  It’s not really “news” that Democrats are opposed to Republicans.  Yes, the media will always cover it, but does the public actually care that Democrats are not fans of Republicans?  I think the public would care a lot more that a group of “concerned citizens” or a group of labor leaders are opposed to McCain.  Thus, keeping the protest separate from the Democratic response sends a much more important message to the public.

3.  Having a protest of citizens or labor leaders sounds much more grass-roots than having a rally led by Democratic Leaders, which sounds like a top-down event.

4.  I personally think it’s important for progressive institutions to maintain some conceptual distance from the Democratic party.  I always vote for Democrats and will be doing so this November, but I think we need progressive institutions to be independent enough where they can criticize the Democrat Party when the party (all too often) begins to drift away from the ideals of rank-and-file Democrats.  In the past few years we’ve seen the disastrous consequences of the D.C. Democrat’s shift to the right (though I think things are beginning to change, thanks in large part to the netroots), and I think at least part of that shift was allowed to happen because of progressive institutions’ willingness to always support Dems rather than stay true to their founding principles.    Thus, I’d love to see unions and other progressive groups organize their own rallies in response to regressive candidates like McCain, without having to feel that they need to be seen holding hands with a Democratic candidate at the rally.

So, in summary, I hope that the response to McCain’s visit next Sunday will consist of both a Democratic response (issued by press release) and an actual rally organized by a progressive institution (or several).  That way, the public can see that ordinary citizens are opposed to McCain not because they want their own political party to be in power, but because they understand that McCain’s agenda is directly opposed to the well-being of ordinary Americans.

Since I didn’t mention enough of these races, I figure now might be a time to make up for possible oversights. In the general theme of the post, it’s easy to overlook these districts due to the Republican primary turnout tilt from St. Charles and St. Louis. But the reasons for curiousity.

9 open Republican seats (7 St. Louis and 2 St. Charles), 3 open Democratic seats.

7 Republican seats in STL County and St. Charles County were won by 5% or less.

Overall: 8 Republican-held seats in St. Charles, 12 Republican-held seats in St. Louis County, 18 Democratic-held seats in St. Louis County.

So, let’s go to the map

(I shaved HD109 off of the map since it’s mainly in Franklin County despite having a portion in St. Charles County)

Uncontested Districts: HD69, HD70, HD71, HD72, HD74, HD75, HD76, HD77, HD79, HD80, HD81, HD83, HD84, HD88 (12 Dems, 2 Reps [HD84 – Icet and HD88 – Open])

So let’s go to the open districts

HD13

Open due to: Bob Onder trying (and failing) to win the MO-9 primary

Biggest city in the district: Lake St. Louis (10,169)

Nominees: Chuck Gatschenberger (R) and David E. Hurst (D)

Primary voting split: 70% for Reps candidates, 30% for Hurst

2006 results: Bob Onder unopposed

Quick judgment: Probably not high on a list of flippable seats.

HD18

Open due to: Matt Blunt doggedly refusing to call for a special election after Tom Dempsey resigned his seat to become a State Senator

District is made up of: St. Charles

Nominees: Anne Zerr (R) and Tim Swope (D)

Primary voting split: 64/36 Reps, but Swope won more votes in his uncontested primary than Zerr won in her contested primary.

2006 results: 53/47 Dempsey

Judgment: One to watch, as Swope was the St. Charles Sheriff (as a Republican) and is the police chief.

HD85

Open due to: Jim Lembke running for the State Senate

Largest city in the district: Mehlville (14,655)

Nominees: Cloria Brown (R) and Vicki Englund (D)

Primary voting split: 54/46 Dem (1524 Brown, 1222 Englund, 607 Wagganer)

2006 results: 52/48 Lembke

Judgment call: Very ripe to flip from my outsider’s perspective.

HD86

Open due to: Term limits

Made up of: Chesterfield

Nominees: Cole McNary (R) and Marty Ott (D)

Primary voting split: 71/29 Rep

2006 results 56/44 Cunningham over Ott

Judgment call: I’d expect it to come within 10 points with a stronger margin for Ott is there’s a larger tidal wave. Although McNary won a commanding total for a 6-way primary.

HD87

Open due to: Scott Muschany not wanting to get arrested for deviant sexual assault in the middle of a campaign (Muschany instead retired and got arrested a few weeks ago)

Largest city: Ladue (pop. 8645)

Nominees: John Diehl (R) and Mark Zoole (D)

Primary voting split: 61/39 Rep in two uncontested primaries

2006 results: Muschany 55/45

Judgment call: Intriguing seat, it was suddenly opened months ago as Muschany retired shortly after the alleged encounter that he got arrested for a few weeks ago. I don’t know enough about how Zoole is performing to say if we would have had a better candidate if Muschany bailed out earlier.

HD91

Open due to: Term limits

Largest city: Webster Groves (pop. 20746 in district)

Nominees: Randy Jotte (R) and Jeanne Kirkton (D)

Primary voting split: 52/48 Rep with the Rep primary being contested

2006 results: Fares 50.7, Trout 49.3

Judgment call: Very winnable

HD92

Open due to: Term limits

Largest city: Manchester (pop. 19,361)

Nominees: Sue Allen (R) and Ronnie Herman (D)

Primary split: 67/33 Rep

2006 results: 56/44 Portwood

Judgment call: Maybe being next to a few other close districts will rub off on HD92

HD95

Open due to: Sudden retirement

Largest city: Crestwood (pop. 11,863)

Nominees: Mike Leara (R) and Alice Geary Sgroi (D)

Primary split: 59/41 Rep

2006 results: 60/40 Avery

Judgment: Might be safe, but I won’t go all-in on that call.

and now a switch to some non-open seats that were close in 2006

HD15 (Sally Faith)

Almost completely made up of: St. Charles (with 582 St. Peters residents too)

Democratic nominee: Michael Niemeyer

Primary split: 58/42 Rep

2006 results: Sally Faith 50, Tom Green 48

Judgment: Not the closest St. Charles seat (as we’ll see in a moment or two) but a promising seat.

HD16 (Mark Parkinson)

Mainly made up of: St. Peters

Democratic nominee: Kristy Manning (who we can see on the ads here)

Primary split: 58/42 Rep

Feb 2008 results: Parkinson 52, Fann 48

2006 results: Bearden 55, Ed Appelbaum 45

Judgment: Kristy’s ad says it all, close the gap and the seat flips.

HD17 (Vicki Schneider)

Split between: St. Peters and O’Fallon

Democratic nominee: Kenny Biermann

Primary split: 54/46 Rep

2006 results: Schneider 51, Biermann 49

Judgment: This is a very winnable seat in St. Charles. But it’s a matter of what prevails, an incumbent who has another shot after a close call or a challenger who is closing the gap

HD93 (Dwight Scharnhorst)

Democratic nominee: Phil Bognar

Primary split: 59/41 Rep

2006 results: Scharnhorst 52, Genevieve Frank 48

Judgment: See HD94 judgement

HD94 (Rick Stream)

Made up of: Kirkwood

Democratic challenger: Deb Lavender

Primaty split: 53/47 Rep

2006 results: Stream 51, Jane Bogetto 49 (one of two Dem seat losses in 2006)

Judgment: HD93 and HD94 both opened up in late 2005. Jane Bogetto picked up HD94, but Genevieve Frank lose to Scharnhorst in February 2006. The districts border each other. But HD94 is more friendly and barring a huge surprise, it should be bluer for Lavender than HD93.

Seats passed over for a mention: George “Boots” Weber’s HD89 bid against Timothy Jones and Jan Polizzi’s HD97 bid against Walt Bivins missed the cut in STL County. Debbie Cook’s bid against Cynthia Davis in HD19 also missed the cut for an extensive mention.

Open Democratic seats in STL County:

Steve Brown is the nominee in HD73 (Margaret Donnelly’s seat) against Daniel O’Sullivan. Margo McNeil is the nominee in HD78 (Clint Zweifel’s seat) against T. R. Carr. Jill Schupp is the nominee in HD82 (Sam Page’s seat). Schupp’s vote total was lower than the total for Terry Frank and Republican nominee Frank Plescia. I’d imagine these seats are reasonably safe.

So, the current verdict: Three open seats are very winnable, while 4 other seats are looking very good. St. Louis and St. Charles County Dems have the potential to help in closing the gap between 71 and 82.

Lastly, the people who are reading from the St. Louis area can help supplement all of this. They should be pretty good in helping note the promising seats for Democrats in the St. Louis/St. Charles area. So feel free to comment.

Hi everyone,

Thanks to all of you for joining; we now have amazing activists from SLU, UMSL, WashU, Webster, Fontbonne and from the St. Louis community in the group (and these are just the people I know personally), and are quickly approaching 300 members!  If you have a moment, please take the time to invite your friends to join.  The larger the St. Louis Activist Hub is, the better we will be able to find out about the great events going on across town, coordinate our events with other groups, and make contact with people who share our vision of a better world.  I’ll be adding a couple features to the group in the near future that will help with these efforts to collaborate.

In the meantime, here are some cool progressive events for the upcoming week.  If you know of any upcoming events, please don’t hesitate to put them up on the wall; and if you’d like me to include an event in the weekly messages, please let me know the weekend before the event takes place:

Monday, August 25  The Young Democrats of Greater St. Louis are holding their monthly membership meeting at the Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood at 7 PM.  You can RSVP and find out more here .

Tuesday, August 26 The Justice Institute, a group dedicated to training activists in St. Louis based on the Ella Baker model of organizing, will be meeting at the Rowan Center, 1401 Rowan Avenue, at 7 PM.  One of the founders of the Student Non Violent Coordinatin Committee (SNCC), Baker’s emphasis on personal relationships and group-centered, grassroots leadership made her the consummate teacher and organizer of her time.    

Wednesday, August 27.  Local activist Hedy Epstein is one of the people featured in the documentary “The Easiest Targets.”  The documentary will be shown at 1 PM on cable channel 18.  More info at this link.

Thursday, August 28, We have dueling Watch Party’s for the Obama acceptance speech.  NARAL and Drinking Liberally will be meeting at the Premium Lounge at 7 PM, and you can RSVP here.  The Young Democrats of Greater St. Louis will be at the Moolah, and the event page is here.

Friday, August 29:  A new exhibit titled “Images of War and Peace” will be opening at Webster University’s May Gallery, 8300 Big Bend Blvd.  This is the kickoff of Webster’s International Year of Human Rights.  The reception kicks off with some opening remarks at 5 PM.  More info is at this link.

Saturday, August 30 . BBQ for Obama at Kiener Plaza at noon.  Details here.

Also Saturday, it’s a bit of a drive, but there will be canvassing for State Rep. candidate Kristy Manning in St. Peters.  Details are at this facebook page .

Saturday and/or Sunday: A group of St. Louisans are heading up to St. Paul for the RNC protests.  Zachary Otte is coordinating the trip; contact him or sign up for the event at the event page if you are interested.

Sunday, August 31: John McCain is going to be in O’Fallon before heading up to the RNC.  I’m sure there will be some kind of response to his visit, though I don’t know any details yet.  Check in on the groups wall later in the week if you’d like to know the final plans.  Here’s where I originally saw the annoucement.

A couple other announcements: There is going to be an Activist Training Day for student groups on Saturday, Sept. 20.  Please contact me if you are interested in finding out more.

SLU students (and others): a group is working on getting a polling place at SLU to make it easier for students to vote: check it out.

That’s all for now; have a fun and meaningful week,

Adam

WHY I DON’T WANT A 72-YEAR OLD PRESIDENT

I turned 69 this week.  My husband is 73.  Most of our friends are over 60, and we joke about our “senior moments.”  We know our brains aren’t as flexible and powerful as they once were, so humor is one way of coping with that unhappy realization.  We can’t think of the words we want to say.  It takes longer to understand what someone is telling us.  We schedule something for next Thursday while not realizing next Thursday falls on the day of the month that we always do something else.  I know younger people also “double book” themselves, but this is different.  We can actually entertain both possibilities at the same time and not see the contradiction.  

I can understand why John McCain still thinks there is a country called Czechoslovakia and that Russia is still part of the Soviet Empire.  We talked about those things for so many decades, they are imprinted on our brains.  It’s really hard to unstick something you learned 50 years ago and lived with that long.   I can understand why he referred to the “Iraq-Afghanistan border,” too, even though the two countries are 700 miles apart.  News reports have referred to those two countries together for five years because the U.S. is involved in wars in both of them.  Words that are repeated constantly together become linked in our brains, and it’s hard to unlink them and say “the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.”  

When a reporter asks a question that John McCain is not prepared for, he appears to be staring into space.  I know the feeling.  He’s doing a “search” of his brain much the way we Google information on a computer.  Somewhere deep in that database, there’s an answer that makes sense  – if only he could get into the right file.  Been there, done that.  I’ve started the habit doing a little humming thing while I’m searching my brain for relevant information.  It’s more entertaining than saying “uh…uh…mm…uh.”

I graduated with a 2.86 out of 4.0 GPA from an academically rigorous Jesuit college.  John McCain graduated 894th out of 899 in his class at the naval academy.  I’m sure the curriculum was tough there even though they probably didn’t have Father Riordan’s class in metaphysics.   He’s no Rhodes scholar, and neither am I.  We both survived traumatic experiences that made us sadder but wiser.  I don’t know if it’s true that he left his first wife because he met Cindy and liked her better, but I know his first wife still cares for him.  (She said so in an interview last month.)  I can relate to that.  

Like most people my age, I wonder what the future will be like for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  I know I won’t be around to find out.  It’s hard to envision the future, much less strategize ways to shape it, when you know someone else will be making the decisions 10 years from now.  I’m so thankful there are bright, creative, passionate young people all around me.  I marvel at their energy, shorthand conversations, and how quickly they can program a number into their cell phones.  It took me three years to remember my cell phone number.  I taped it to the back of the phone.  

ButI digress………

And that’s why I don’t want a 72-year-old president.