Obama Is Just Plain Bad at Politics

My point was that he was able to convince

Again, I don't think he did this.

I think the media did it, both by spouting lies and refusing to report his background.

I don't think he convinced them to do this; I think they wanted a far-left politician and would have used a brick wall if that's all they had to work with.

I think the media did it, both by spouting lies and refusing to report his background.

I think you grant the media much more power than they actually have. If they were as "all-powerful" as you claim, we never would have elected Ronald Reagan. They were dead-set against him and they were more powerful in the 1980's than they are now, when they are widely perceived as a laughing-stock.

If they were as "all-powerful" as you claim, we never would have elected Ronald Reagan

I never said they are "all-powerful". When RR was running, the public had experienced MSM lies for 4 years and recognizing those lies was becoming easier.

But 4 years previously the people were buying every commie trick the MSM sold.

Same now. The media pumped Barry and the public bought it. Now, not so much.

"I think you grant the media much more power than they actually have."

What percentage of the country do you believe would agree that Sarah Palin actually said, "I can see Russia from my house"?

Ronald Reagan was elected in a day and age that didn't have the kind of media saturation as we see today. And, he was elected when media - to include the entertainment business - wasn't NEARLY as politicized as it is today. It is, in many ways, apples & oranges.

Virtually every television show on today, and MANY movies have an obscene level of politically slanted content. Look at this list of movies nominated for Oscars and compare the movies in 1970s to the movies in the 2000s. Not until the late 70s, do we start to see a real emergence of political movies, and all of them are anti-war type movies - about a war that is LONG over. Today, Hollywood makes anti-war movies about a war that is still being faught.

Look at the list from 2005. Everyone one of those movies has at least some political message, or is entirely about a political message.

Crash
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Good Night
Munich

I could go on, but for a variety of reasons, I think the media is MUCH more powerful and influential today than it was in the 1970s and early 1980s. Contrary to popular sentiment, the MSM is not dying.

That's just not so. The media has always been liberal, always biased and always against conservatives, at least since the LBJ Great Society days. There were left-wing movies made in the 60's and 70's too, more in fact. Vietnam anti-war, green propaganda, Soviet apologism and more.

The one thing that is constant and predictable in American politics is the liberalism of the media. It's simply a given.

"The media has always been liberal, always biased and always against conservatives, at least since the LBJ Great Society days."

Yes, there has always been a leftist slant in the media. My argument is that today, that slant is more pronounced and that media saturation is so complete, it could be described as ubiquitous.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan had the opportunity during the debates to really change the prevailing public opinion about him that he was a war monger and an idiot. He was able to change that opinion because before the advent of cable news, people only really had very limited exposure to the candidates themselves. So, while they had an opinion, it wasn't as resolute as the opinions that are held today.

This is why we did see wild swings in the electorate - huge landslide victories in 1964, 1968, 1972, 1980 and 1984. Then, almost perfectly synchronized with the emergence of CNN, the country started to become more polarized and fixed. It's also, IMHO, why we have only seen a Republican win the popular vote in a national election just once since 1988. The media is much more capable today, than they were in before the 1980s.

And, I would point you back to that list of Oscar movies. Look at the difference in the types of movies produced in the 1960s compared to the movies produced today. The politically-themed movies have increased exponentially.

With respect to television, All in the Family and MASH were unique in their era precisely because they were so political in nature. They were ground-breaking for just that reason. Today, as I said earlier, it's difficult to watch any show on any network that doesn't have some either overtly political message, or subtle political message.

And, as much as he may suck at politics, he’s still kicking the GOP’s arse all over the map.

Is that really Obama, or the Republicans' own incompetence?

Right now, there's a tilt in the Democrats' direction. Democrats don't need to be good at politics to benefit from it. Republicans have to be very good at politics to overcome it.

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