GOP Dirty Tricks and the Complicit Media
By Mike Hersh, Aug 27, 2002

I poured over the data from the 2000 election, and I found some very odd results. People who thought Gore was too liberal and voted for Bush - that makes sense. People who thought Gore was too conservative but voted for Bush - that doesn't. I was struck by how many people admitted Bush wasn't up to the job, but voted for him anyway. See: Decision 2000.

I can think of a few reasons for this.

One, the media relentlessly bashing Al Gore with dishonest attacks - even his choice of clothing - while ignoring Bush's deep flaws, Texas record, and shady dealings. Another is the cynical, but expertly designed Republican dirty trick machine which fed a steady stream of lies to a compliant media.

Remember the flap about Naomi Wolf telling Gore to wear "earth tones?" The media frenzy about Al Gore "inventing the Internet," inspiring Love Story, and "discovering" Love Canal? All those came directly from Republican National Committee "attack faxes" and went directly into print and on the air - not as paid political commercials. As "news." All of them were lies.

When a lone reporter dared report what Bush did in the Lone Star State, it was so anomalous Bush attacked him with a profanity. The reporter became the story, and the real story - Bush's record in Texas - all but disappeared.

Remember Adam Clymer and what Bush called him? We all do. Remember what Clymer wrote that brought on Bush's blast and Cheney's "big time" remark? Most voters didn't. That was no accident.

The Clymer incident demonstrated almost unanimous media support for Bush in every way that matters. Just as the Naomi Wolf tempest showed the media sunk to all time lows to blast Al Gore. Why did they do this? Most media millionaires wanted Bush to win.

If there were any questions about this, The Daily Howler put them to bed. If the media did their job, Al Gore would be doing his, serving as President, as we elected him to do in 2000.

It may have been the tax cuts, or orders from the corporate suites. Karl Rove cut a deal with the media moguls: if we get in, you can merge and acquire each other to your hearts' content, we will not enforce FCC or antitrust regulations. The why is important, but the what is clear. The mass media - where almost all of us get the "news" to choose our leaders - became Republican stenographers rather than reporters.

The Republicans realized Al Gore would win easily on the issues and would benefit from a strong economy, peace, his experience, and general professional qualifications. They set out to attack Al Gore as a phony, striking early and often, belittling everything he said and accusing him of lying whatever he said. Their strategy: turn boring Boy Scout Gore into a lying Clinton clone. It worked.

Exit polling showed honesty was the "one candidate quality [that] mattered most in deciding how" nearly a quarter of the electorate voted, and nearly all of those people voted for Bush. Twice as many made honesty their deciding factor versus those who considered qualities like caring, strong leadership, and understanding issues most important.

In one of the closest presidential elections ever, Bush won 50,456,002 total votes, or 47.87% of the votes cast. Al Gore won 50,999,897 votes, 48.38% of the the total. Among the 24% of voters who said the candidates' honesty mattered most, Bush clobbered Gore 80% to 15%. Among the more than 24,000,000 "Honesty" voters - those who made their decision mainly because they felt one of the candidates was more trustworthy than the other - four out of five chose Bush.

More than 19,000,000 voters selected Bush because they felt he was more trustworthy, while barely one in six - about 4,000,000 - picked Gore. If voters perceived both candidates as more or less equally honest, Gore would have come closer to evenly splitting the 24 million "honesty" voters, giving him as many as 8 million additional votes while Bush would have taken 8 million fewer.

Gore apparenly lost (and Bush apparently gained) 4% at the polls because millions of voters considered Gore too dishonest to support. Without this apparent "honesty deficit," Gore would have won easily - approximately 54% to 46%. Exit polling shows the GOP / media success branding Al Gore "dishonest" cost Gore a major landslide.

This happened because of a concerted, sustained effort by RNC operatives to hammer home the message that Al Gore is a liar. The media not only refused to set the record straight, but reinforced the Republican attacks with inaccurate and dishonest reporting. The data suggests if the media covered Bush's actual lies as much as things they called Gore's lies, Gore would have won in a landslide. Or if the media focused as equally on factors that favored Gore - such as experience and understanding issues - as on honesty, again Gore would have won in a landslide.

Clearly, the Republican strategy focused on branding Al Gore a liar. It's also clear the media cooperated with this. We know this is coming again in 2004, no matter who runs against Bush. This time, we know Bush has a real "honesty deficit," and we should be ready. We must also anticipate a new set of GOP dirty tricks, and millionaire media complicity with them.

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