Angling for a Cocktail Party Invitation
I think this situation is rather more complicated than Julian Sanchez makes out. It’s true that on the whole career incentives point in the direction of ideological orthodoxy rather than trying to snag some slot as a token. Still, within that framework of overall orthodoxy, the incentives are still to be somewhat less orthodox and on-message than your colleagues — stand out as the “reasonable” one and get invited to do panels and stuff. But I’ve never been invited to a Georgetown cocktail party.
Thus, let me say that I don’t think Dan Balz’ suggestion that there should be a double-standard with more scrutiny applied to Barack Obama’s ideas than to John McCain’s is nearly as nutty as Jon Chait and other liberals I’ve read seem to think. After all, we don’t expect the press to give equal time to analysis of Bob Barr’s ideas as they do to John McCain’s. Why not? Well, because Barr is much less likely to become president. Similarly, at this point it’s much more likely that Obama will become president than that McCain will. Is the Obama-McCain gap as big as the Barr-McCain gap? Of course not. So the scrutiny gap shouldn’t be nearly as big, either. But that’s not to say it shouldn’t be there. And, again, at this point everyone agrees that there will be Democratic majorities in the congress which means that Obama is likely to have much more flexibility than McCain would to implement his agenda. This, too, points to somewhat heightened scrutiny of Obama.
The fly in the ointment for my argument is that thus far, as usual, there’s been only a tiny amount of coverage of either candidate’s policy agenda. But that’s the problem. If there was serious coverage of the candidates’ policy proposals than giving 60-65 percent of the space to trying to understand the ins-and-outs of the Obama agenda and only 40-35 percent to trying to understand the McCain agenda would be reasonable enough.
33 Responses to “Angling for a Cocktail Party Invitation”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
October 14th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
The fly in the ointment for my argument is that thus far, as usual, there’s been only a tiny amount of coverage of either candidate’s policy agenda.
No, the fly in the ointment is your assumption of good faith on the part of Balz. Is there any reason at all for that assumption? While not nearly the NY Sun, WaPo is riddled with neocons. I don’t know anything about Balz, but I don’t think that the default assumption should be that there is no ill intent behind suggestions that a Dem be held to a higher standard. Maybe he’s being sincere and above board. But, you know, maybe not.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
According to fivethirtyeight, the current probability gap, algebraically, is on the order of 90%, so the gap between McCain and Barr could not be larger than the gap between Obama and McCain. Geometrically, however, if Barr has a 0.25% chance or less of winning, then you are correct Matt.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Yglesias, you are naive.
This is in part an iteration of the “We are getting bored and want a close race!” phenomenon that only that that it applies to Democrats and never to Republicans. Partly to give cover to everyone out to rip apart Obama. Just like happened to Clinton when she was the fore runner. And in part stupidity.
It used to be that Obama/Clinton got much of the scrutiny and McCain got a free ride. When asked about it, the political press fell back on the talking point that McCain’s time to undergo scrutiny will come as soon as the Dems primary was done. Can anyone say that McCain has been seriously scrutinized by the media from the time Obama won the nomination to the present? Now with three weeks to go, it is now time to scrutinize Obama more than McCain?
October 14th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Do “Georgetown cocktail parties” even happen anymore? I mean, I’m sure that someone in Georgetown throws a cocktail party from time to time, but is this really still an important and influential social circle to which people aspire to membership?
October 14th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
The other dynamic is that the Dan Balz’s of the world promised that at some point they would shift from trivialities to actually examining McCain’s policy. They said it wasn’t the right time while the Dem Primary was still going on, August was too hot, The Pennant Race took September off the table, and uhmm, err…well I think they still owe us.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
This is wrong on so many levels, its just nuts.
Its OK for the press to focus their limited airtime etc resources on Obama and McCain vs Barr because
a) there’s no chance this will significantly affect the outcome of the election
b) Barr’s showing at the polls will have no effect on the Libertarian party’s influence.
For example, if Barr was getting Perot-like numbers, it’ll be utterly irresponsible to let him slide, even if he wasn’t going to win the election.
In this case,
a) its not certain Obama will win the election and press coverage can definitely affect it.
b) The Republican and Democratic parties being major players, even affecting a candidate’s margin of victory will have an effect on his perceived legitimacy. Doesn’t anybody recall the wingnuts shrill insistence that Clinton never had a mandate ’cause he never cracked 50%?
I’d say all candidates cracking some arbitrary threshold of support, say 10%, should get equal scrutiny.
And damn your contrarian impulses, Yglesias!! Open-tent Democratic party is all well and good, but I seriously hope you’re barred from Drinking Liberally for a week or two.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
“If there was serious coverage of the candidates’ policy proposals than giving 60-65 percent of the space to trying to understand the ins-and-outs of the Obama agenda and only 40-35 percent to trying to understand the McCain agenda would be reasonable enough.”
But that would be good for Obama, not McCain. That’s not what anyone means when they think of scrutiny.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
The difference between Barr and McCain is that McCain has a genuine chance to win and ignoring his ideas would become a factor in making that happen. The press could pretend that Barr was a moose or they could feature him 24/7 and his electoral chances would stay the same. Not so with McCain. Ignoring McCain would materially aid McCain.
It isn’t a nutty idea — to ignore McCain — it’s a pernicious one.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Obviously, to be fair, journalists should spend the next several weeks asking Barack Obama why he hates America and is a terrorist. That would even things up.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I agree that it was naive, or beyond that, to the point of overlooking exactly the kind of bias that Matt admits in his very next post, by imagining what if Obama had quoted a figure from the left analogous to Pegler.
Sure, if the articles were about how, since Obama is almost sure to be president, let’s see what the next four years will be like, then there’s be no bias against him. That scenario would even favor him. Or if they said, well, looks like it’s in the can, so let’s do one last comfort check, that’d be more or less neutral. But this is about finding ways to ensure that he is utterly not a shoo-in.
Only excuse I can find for not subjecting McCain’s ideas to close scrutiny is that he doesn’t put forth any if he can possibly avoid it.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Yglesias here is just being a contrarian. Why? Just because.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Let me add one more reason why this is actually a big deal (i.e., that MY is wrong to downplay it): this affects how Obama will be able to govern if he is elected. If the press spends the last few weeks tearing down the victor (which I’m not saying will be Obama) and not pointing out the flaws of the loser’s plans, then by December a bunch of people will be saying, “[insert loser's name here] would have been doing so much better.” And if that loser is McCain, you’ll have lunatics calling for Obama’s head, literally.
(Digby has been pointing this out for a while in other contexts.)
October 14th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
I think the main problem is some people are suspicious of Dan Balz’s true motive; i.e we think he’s just trying to help out McCain by calling out for more scrutiny of Obama. I for one don’t have any problem with his reasoning (as you explained it here): amount of scrutiny should be proportional to the likelihood of being President. That’s not the problem. My problem is with Dan Balz being the one calling for it. I just don’t believe that his motive is objective.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Matt I think you have just succinctly highlighted what up till now has been a vastly overlooked problem. Namely the Strategic Cocktail Party Gap in the liberal blogsphere.
Since we live in a Web 2.0 world I have taken it upon myself to help rectify this terrible imbalance. And I implore you, your friends, your readers to hop on over and bring much needed attention to this terrible blog sphere deficiency.
I bring you:
>a href=”http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/773q4/invite_matt_yglesias_to_georgetown_cocktail/
“> Invite Matt Yglesias to Georgetown Cocktail parties!!
A Martini glass is a terrible thing to waste…
October 14th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Sorry tag should be.
Invite Matt Yglesias to Georgetown Cocktail parties!!
October 14th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
So Matt, if we act left of center but frequently disagree with you, you’ll buy us liquor?
October 14th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
The proposal to give more scrutiny to Obama’s ideas than to McCain’s is not only silly, it’s potentially dangerous.
The Barr analogy is irrelevant, because Barr has no chance to be elected. In the case of McCain and Obama, it’s more or less a zero sum game. Losses suffered by Obama are going to benefit McCain and vice versa.
If the media scrutinize Obama’s ideas more closely than McCain’s and that causes Obama to lose support, then there won’t be time left to scrutinize McCain before the election. Hence, the greater scrutiny could alter the outcome of the election.
This is a genuinely bad idea. In reality, American elections are either-or affairs. Both candidates should have their ideas exhaustively studied and reported on.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Some day you’re going to be able to sit at the big people’s table. This post shows mad tee ball skills.
October 14th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
The other reason you’re right is that McCain’s policy proposals, such as they are, won’t (or shouldn’t) be successful in a Democratic congress.
October 14th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
It was thinking like this by the referees that allowed Miami to steal the 2006 NBA Championship.
October 14th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Plenty of people on the antiwar side are examining Obama’s foreign policy stands in detail – and finding them not significantly different from McCain’s stands.
Except Matt, who is completing ignoring that issue and has been ignoring it for months.
Mostly because Matt’s foreign policy stands on Afghanistan and Pakistan are in line with both Obama and McCain – i.e., more troops and let’s “win over there” – totally contrary to Matt’s reasonable arguments about Iraq being unwinnable. And Matt apparently is incapable of noticing that his stated stance on Iran is contrary to Obama’s stance.
So I guess Harvard philosophy classes teach you that “consistency is the hobgoblin of wannabe pundits.”
October 14th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
The problem with this reasoning is that we can’t usually accurately predict who will win. To the extent that the media was biased against Hillary in the primary it was probably because prior to Iowa Obama wasn’t considered likely to win. If they weren’t asking about driver’s licenses and complaining about a complicated but reasonable position on the subject this might have been less of a problem. Voting for the Iraq war resolution was probably the reason she lost.
November 30th, 2008 at 11:28 am
PROVO – Two days away from the regular-season opener, coach Dave Rose knows this about his 2008-09 BYU basketball team: The Cougars can shoot. Whether they can defend better, shoot better from the free-throw line and rebound better
January 13th, 2009 at 10:11 am
laptop battery
laptop batteries
February 8th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
laptop battery
March 11th, 2009 at 9:50 am
I want to say – thank you for this!
March 13th, 2009 at 5:49 am
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
March 14th, 2009 at 10:07 am
I want to say – thank you for this!
xanax
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:41 am
tramadol
I bookmarked this site. Thank you for good job!
March 22nd, 2009 at 11:32 am
buy viagra online
Excellent site. It was pleasant to me.
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:41 am
If you have to do it, you might as well do it right
buy cheap viagra
April 7th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
I really liked your blog! Hope you keep posting wonderful information!
April 15th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
I can tell that this is not the first time you write about the topic. Why have you chosen it again?