Democratic National Convention - Day 2
Thursday, January 25, 2007
(The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation)
Democratic National Convention - Day
2
Guest: Richard C. Harwood, Special to
MSNBC
Welcome back Mr.
Harwood.
Good to be
back!
THE_RAGING_PATRIOT-g
says: Why does the democratic convention seem
so borring, they use to be exciting but they
seem to have lost their edge with the
Youth
steve_baxley-guest says:
I thought the conventions were about as
interesting as a riot at a BMW deaership, where
is the spontaniousness, were is the
chuspah!..WHERE IS THE
EXIT!!!!!!!!!!
Did they
really used to be so much better or are our
expectations too high?
I
don't think expectations are too
high. I
think that there's been so much a beating up on
the conventions by the news media and the
opposing political party that I think we've all
come to jump on the bandwagon now and complain
endlessly about these conventions. If you look
at news coverage of the convention, much of it
is on how boring they are and how little is
taking place as opposed to covering what is
taking place and what it might mean for voters
this year. That said, the conventions have
become too much of a television show and even
with that, they've become silly in ways. For
example, the panel discussion at the Democratic
convention with "real
citizens".
What about the
"lost their edge with the youth" part? Should
Mtv run these campaigns?
I
think politics has lost its edge with the
youth. Politicians seem to believe they "know"
society including younger voters because of
focus groups and surveys they hold. They seem
to be tone deaf on the depth and feel of
American voters and particularly among younger
voters and that
shows.
StormyMS1 says: Do you
still think the Al Gore needs to re-read his
book to "find" himself, or is it too
late?
guest-essen34 says: why
would a man of algore 's age have to re-invent
himself ?
I don't think Al
Gore should reinvent himself at this point in
his life or necessarily needs to. I think what
he does need to do is put forth himself and let
the chips fall where they may. There's no
guarantee when you run for President or any
office and there's not this time either. About
his book, I suspect he has gone back to re-read
it and if he hasn't, he should because after
years of public service and of working as hard
as he does, you can lose your bearings. And I
think his book is an expression of who he
really is, unvarnished focus group without any
surveys conducted for
him.
18 -
pop-guest says: Will what we do not need is all
the analyst tom pick about someone speech,what
we do need is someone that is not bais and to
show the difference btween Bush and
Gore
Is the media doing a
good job?
Is it doing ITS
job?
I do believe that
analysts pick apart candidate's speeches too
much in that they tend to look for the politics
around the speeches and how someone looks as
opposed to how someone is presenting their
record, whether it's consistent with their
past, how it's similar or different to the
other party's nominee. So I think the news
media can do a lot better job in covering these
conventions. One example - if you've noticed
how correspondents on the convention floor end
each interview with someone, they tend to make
a passing remark, giving their own commentary
about what the person is or what they said, I
think the correspondents ought to let people
speak for themselves.
Rich,
with that answer you just won the votes of
everyone in the room I think
:)
One of the things that
the news media doesn't seem to quite get which
we find in our research with them is that
people don't look to the news media for a final
answer, they only look at the news media as
another source in the ability to make their own
judgments about what they think and believe and
value. The news media ought to pull back on
some of its analysis and frankly cheap shots at
some of the people who are engaging in public
service or at least trying
to.
linn35-guest says: what is
a deadcat bounce?
bruce-guest
says: i will ask this again if there is poll
now that shows al gore ahead by one point why
is that not quoted in your last report.the
harris poll released 8/14 shows gore 43 bush
42.but you only quote polls that the
story
I think it's because
of the way the Democrats framed their
convention, for instance, who's been speaking
each night and what they're talking about. I
don't think it surprising that they haven't
received or may not receive yet the bounce that
many people might anticipate. I think the
bounce for the Dems will come only after Al
Gore makes his speech tonight and frankly over
the next few weeks in whether or not the VP can
sustain people in taking another look at him
and then potentially moving over to his
side.
RD-guest says: To Hoch:
If Gore loses he can blame the loss on the
Democrat Senators (including Lieberman) who
voted to keep an impeached Clinton. If had been
removed Gore would be a sitting president and
much harder to defeat in the coming election.
If Gore had replaced Clinton in '98, he would
be entitled to 10 years as president. The
Democrats screwed up when they voted to let
Clinton continue in
office.
Things have
already unfolded so we can't change those. But
I happen to disagree with the question. I think
once the VP makes his speech tonight and goes
back on the campaign trail, people will see
clear differences both positive and negative
between him and Clinton. People will make up
their minds on Al Gore. I think the days of
people only seeing Al Gore through the lens of
what Bill Clinton did, in terms of the Monica
Lewinsky affair, is not as important as it once
was.
Dont_Stop-guest says: You
have to be joking! McCain got cancer as a trick
to spear the Dems????? What a pathetic thing to
say!
I don't believe that
and I don't want to believe that. I think the
question and the rumors running around tell us
just how deep the mistrust about politics can
get in this country.
pop-guest
says: pop question,can one debate be do for the
people and not the politicans where the
question are not staged and go from the local
poeple and not the local
politicans
I think we saw
that in the Richmond debate in 1996 to a
limited extent. There is a move afoot among
many civic organizations to hold political
debates in the way that you're talking. But the
candidates and their handlers want so much
control over how debates are put together and
staged that many candidates simply won't do it.
I'm reminded now of the Bradley-Gore debate in
New Hampshire which had a fair amount of
citizen participation and where the two
candidates could respond to each other. I
thought that format showed some
promise.
mitch-guest says:
Most non partisan folks i have met usually had
a liberal leaning, how about Mr Harwood. What
is educational
backround
People are very
skeptical when I say
"non-partisan"
I've a BA
degree in political economy from Skidmore
College in upstate NY and a Master's Degree in
public affairs from Princeton University. But
many of my thoughts that I'm talking about
today have come from years of work in
communities and with people from across this
country in the Harwood Institutes research and
projects. You can check us out at
http://dev.theharwoodinstitute.org/
Before
we let you go Mr. Harwood, let's talk about
tonight.
Is tonight Do or
Die for Gore, and what would make a "do" and
what would make a "die."
I
don't think it's necessarily do or die. I think
there've been lots of campaigns where people
came back from the "dead" to win an election. I
do think what Gore needs to do tonight is
demonstrate his character for people. I don't
mean in the way we talked about Bill Clinton's
character or to tell us about his personality.
What I mean character in terms of telling
Americans, and I have a piece on NBC on this
coming up, what is the calling he believes
America must respond to now. What's given rise
to the need for such a calling? And what does
that calling mean for individual Americans and
his policy proposals? The Democrats keep
talking about JFK and MLK and the callings they
sounded for America. Gore wants to put himself
in that group so what's the calling he's
talking about today.
Thanks
very much Mr. Harwood for taking all of this
time with us during these
conventions.
Thank you
very much.
