Glenn Kessler of Wash. Post ponders the continual "Overselling" of the the importance of Independent Voters in Presidential politics, and Kessler's piece support's Rush Limbaugh's longtime contention re GOP consultants fixation on Independents to the exclusion of core voters and GOTV

Two weeks after the Obama-Romney presidential election we are finally starting to get a more-nuanced, fact-based picture of what actually took place that day and in the lead-up to it, and part of what we're seeing is that some long cherished myths and notions among the professional political class may now be gone with the wind, because they can not be proven with real voters anymore.

The Washington Post

Overselling the importance of independent voters

Posted by Glenn Kessler at 06:02 AM ET, 11/20/2012

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/overselling-the-importance-of-independent-voters/2012/11/19/1c04b598-3294-11e2-bfd5-e202b6d7b501_blog.html

In my opinion, this article goes a long way towards validating one of the central tenets of Rush Limbaugh's oft-repeated point that, in general, GOP political consultants worry far too much publicly about -and perhaps spend too much resources towards wooing- Independents and Undecideds.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2012/11/19/the_gop_consultant_class_blames_me

That Mitt Romney won the support of the majority of Independent Voters in the U.S. and yet still lost the election, logically, ought to be a not-insignificant fact that should matter and be taken into account, and have a ripple effect across the political world.

Yet you can pretty well expect that by the time the new year rolls around, the very army of

consultants that Limbaugh is talking about (complaining about), will conveniently try to forget

this new fact as soon as possible because it directly challenges their personal M.O., their

business plan AND their world view.

It seems that the world does not revolve around Independent voters after all, but that news might be bad for business!

Bobby Jindal's looming Mainstream Media "Mirror Mirror" problems are closer at hand than I thought; Mark Hendrickson at Forbes.com on -what I see as Jindal's needless- "Jab At Mitt Romney Underscores Republicans' Dilemma"; Jindal is proving Rush Limbaugh's point about GOP self-regard

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal gets played and walks into quicksand, led by CNN's Wolf Blitzer in his condemnation of Mitt Romney: 'We Don't Win Elections By Insulting Voters.' Jindal doesn't seem to fully appreciate the fact that if he were being equally critical of President Obama in his public comments as he was of Mitt Romney prior to his appearance here, he wouldn't be appearing on TV at all. Someone as experienced in dealing with the news media as Jindal should be smart enough to appreciate that he is on TV specifically because he fits the post-election Mainstream Media narrative, but he doesn't. Why? Is the lure of the red light on the camera that powerful to him? sadly, it would appear so, since it's easy to see that when he says something in the future that the same news media wants to exaggerate or misrepresent because it doesn't jibe with the narrative that they want to put forth to the country, who does Jindal think will help him when he's complaining about being left out to dry, the Republican governors? Hardly. It's so damn laughable.
And you'll notice that Jindal is so concentrated on blasting Romney and mouthing high-minded feel-good cliches that he never has the good sense to pivot and turn things around by saying, matter of factly, "On the other hand, Wolf, I sure don't envy you and CNN and the rest of the Beltway media on Inauguration Day trying to remind your viewers what the big idea or ideas proposed by President Obama during the campaign were. You know, the ideas or plans that you and CNN presumably plan on holding him to account for in the new year. No, I don't envy you because there weren't any." Nope! There's none of that sort of quick thinking on his feet. LOL! 
Uploaded November 15, 2012. http://youtu.be/IUsXAseSeXg

Bobby Jindal's looming Mainstream Media "Mirror Mirror" problems are closer at hand than I thought; Mark Hendrickson at Forbes.com on -what I see as Jindal's needless- "Jab At Mitt Romney Underscores Republicans' Dilemma"; Jindal is proving Rush Limbaugh's point about GOP self-regard

The Mark Hendrickson column at Forbes.com that I received late Friday night was clearly written before Friday morning's New Orleans Times-Picayune editorial blasting Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal for resisting creating an Obamacare health insurance exchange.

Forbes.com

Bobby Jindal's Jab At Mitt Romney Underscores Republicans' Dilemma

Mark Hendrickson, Contributor

OP/ED  |  11/16/2012 @ 6:18PM

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhendrickson/2012/11/16/bobby-jindals-jab-at-mitt-romney-underscores-republicans-dilemma/

New Orleans Times-Picayune

Gov. Jindal is ignoring his people's needs: Editorial

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/11/gov_jindal_is_ignoring_his_peo.html

In my opinion, despite all his many admirable qualities and talents, it's likely that Bobby Jindal will STILL likely be trying to reason with the national news media and East Coast elites over the next few years even as they're verbally lynching him by twisting his words and making him seem either ridiculous or dangerous (or both) in ways that he, his friends and supporters can't even imagine now.
Well after the point that it's been clear to me and many others I know that those elites are "just not that into him."

To them, Jindal's an interesting oddity, the fish-out-of-water that complicates their usual patronizing view of The South, so far from the norms of Manhattan and the Beltway.
He's the human anecdote to bring out when important guests come over and you've got the fine china out on the table and want to show you're refined.

For such a very smart guy, remarkable actually, he displays an air of unreality about him at times that's positively frightening, almost childlike, and truly disconnected from the political history of the past 25 years in this country, where people like him are left on the side of the road.

It's as if Jindal thinks -not unlike John Edwards or Bill Clinton- that he can single-handedly talk anyone and everyone he meets into agreeing that he's not only uniquer-than-unique, but also quite correct on the public policy as well.

In many uncomfortable ways, to me, after years of seeing interviews with him on every matter of policy shows and forums and reading what he's written, Jindal seems like Exhibit A from Central Casting in what radio host Rush Limbaugh regularly says about a certain sub-set of Republican pols and consultants who care, desperately, about what the Beltway news media and pundit class think about him.

Just like former GOP senator from Wyoming, Alan Simpson, who was never more popular with the Beltway and East Coast MSM than when he was publicly disparaging the House Republicans in the '90's, esp. Newt Gingrich.
As I know even better, that was especially the role carved out by the media for Indina Senator  Richard Lugar, who for so many years played the role of shadow Secretary of State, even while taking things for granted back in Indiana, where I went to school.
It's also one of the chief reasons he lost the GOP primary to Richard Mourdock in a landslide. 

Sen. Lugar had become the very picture of the media-absorbed pol, albeit a very smart and articulate one, and it was hard fro me not to notice, even before I came back to South Florida in 2003, that he was increasingly getting on TV, on the front pages of major newspapers or being cited in Thomas L. Friedman columns not because of what he had to say about foreign policy, but because he was so consistently willing to publicly criticize other Republicans' policies or ideas.
The MSM found him a 'useful idiot' for their purposes of supporting Democratic policies.

All of that is something that was discussed back on May 16th in a post titled, Richard Mourdock: Precursor or anomaly? Greg Garrison and Charlie Cook adroitly pinpoint where Sen. Richard Lugar eventually lost his way, started losing the trust of Hoosier voters, then lost in a landslide due to the dis-connect. Points largely lost on a predictably apoplectic Beltway MSM
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/richard-mourdock-precursor-or-anomaly.html

What Limbaugh says about that is 100% true, in large part because it's simple human

nature, as I witnessed for 15 years while living and working in D.C. with many Republican

friends who were staffers who worked for bosses on The Hill or the agencies who were constantly being fooled into thinking that someone in the Beltway media and Think Tank Cool Crowd really liked them.

Who doesn't want to be liked? 

That was the central conceit with many new younger male Members of Congress, many of whom were fortunate to be born with either  connections, money or good looks because they sure WEREN'T very bright.

They were so used to people deferring to them that they couldn't tell when they were being played.

Those folks didn't like them, of course, they just wanted to have them around long enough to have some fun at their expense, before eventually tiring of them and sending them packing like Mean Girls -dismissed!

Unless he wises up pretty soon and recognizes reality and stops caring so much what the national news media thinks about him, that's Bobby Jindal's future -mockery and put-downs by the very news media that he so desperately wants to persuade thru his genuine brilliance.

During current Rush Limbaugh-Sandra Fluke controversy, is the U.S. Mainstream Media using old photos of Limbaugh -instead of recent ones- to editorialize? It seems so to me

During current Rush Limbaugh-Sandra Fluke controversy, is the U.S. Mainstream Media using old photos of Limbaugh -instead of recent ones- to editorialize? It seems so to me

Just wanted to mention this subject this afternoon before I moved on to some other matters, but I honestly can't be the only person in America who has noticed (and is now wondering) WHY the U.S. Mainstream Media -the same one that called the GOP nomination for Mitt Romney before the actual campaign ever started in earnest- keeps using old photos, and in some cases, very old photos, of Rush Limbaugh in their articles the past few weeks.

Somehow, the same folks who wouldn't think to use an old photo of Justin Bieber, Tiger Woods or Donald

Trump to illustrate something any they're saying or doing now, seem completely unable to find a new one

that conforms to what Limbaugh looks like now?

Really?

He's not exactly a hermit, you know.

He is who he is, but he is also, arguably, trimmer than many if not most of those old photos from 15-20 years ago that I keep seeing, so why is the U.S. news media seemingly going out of its way to not only use those old photos, esp. of his face, which they then greatly magnify, but then use them to editorialize on the subject of the story before any of the text is read?

That's a good question.

It's also noteworthy that compared to almost anyone else I can think of: politician, athlete, entertainment celebrity, or even John Doe or Jane Q. Public, there is rarely, if ever, a date for the photos of him.

Or even a photographer/agency credit.

It's like the photo of Limbaugh just took itself and magically appeared in the news room for them to use.

The LA Times' Company Town blog post of today, the first in the list below from today's Google Alert,

is perhaps the most obvious example I can name.

As you can see when you go to the story, it does all three of the above.

I'm specifically using the photo they use, on purpose, to prove that very point: no date, no photo credit.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2012/03/rush-limbaugh-advertiser.html

And for those of you who either live far from LA or who don't read the LA Times regularly, the link within the above photo on the LA Times website, curiously, takes you to an LA Times story by Scott Collins on their very popular Company Town blog -which I subscribe to- about actress Patricia Heaton, titled, 

Patricia Heaton: Twitter woes recall past Rush Limbaugh firestorm

March 7, 2012 |  2:46 pm

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2012/03/patricia-heaton-twitter-woes-recall-earlier-rush-limbaugh-firestorm.html

not a link to a timeline of the current controversy involving him and Sandra Fluke.

Nor is it even a link to an article or essay about the longstanding and well-known hypocrisy in both the news media and in Hollywood, which itself at least partly explains why it also doesn't link to anything involving any of the numerous past slights and slurs tossed-out by any of a number of liberal celebs, inc. everyone's favorite target of hypocrisy, comedian/TV host Bill Maher.

Seriously, are well-informed readers who actually can appreciate nuance and context, and who have some genuine notions of basic journalistic fairness, like me, just supposed to believe that all these things randomly happen by accident?

That photos from years ago find themselves placed into stories despite an abundance of more recent photos?

I have to tell you, THAT'S a very tough sell right now.

Just saying...

(I've deleted all the other Google Alert citations below to save space, since, fortunately for me, the very first one makes the point so well, the other 28 pale in comparison.)

-----

From: Google Alerts <googlealerts-noreply@google.com>
Date: Fri, Mar 9, 2012 at 3:46 AM
Subject: Google Alert - "Rush Limbaugh"

News 29 new results for "Rush Limbaugh"

Rush Limbaugh to advertiser: I don't want you back Los Angeles Times The intense campaign to cut advertising to “The Rush Limbaugh Show” took another turn Thursday when one of the first companies to pull its ads reportedly asked to return to the radio show -- only to be told by Team Limbaugh that the conservative host ... See all stories on this topic »

Iowa Caucus-apalooza is tonight, and as 80% reject Romney & Paul, GOP strategists work on Obama's biggest flaw: his own words and his OWN failure to deliver on his lofty rhetoric

First in the Nation: The Iowa Caucuses
http://youtu.be/Da2xVjBiNjQ

That sound you'll be hearing in the distance all across the country later today, around 12 Noon Eastern, is the sound of millions of people turning on their radios to hear what Rush Limbaugh has to say about what is and is NOT going on in the hours leading up to tonight's Iowa GOP presidential caucus.


Townhall.com

Why 80% Reject Paul and Romney
By Kevin McCullough
1/1/2012

Dear Iowa Caucus participants,

You have been told for the better part of year now who it is that you must choose. Beltway insiders have insisted upon thrusting establishment candidates upon you. Libertarian anarchists have swopped into your state shouting that you must support Ron Paul, while toking on the marijuana they soon believe President Paul will make legal.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://townhall.com/columnists/kevinmccullough/2012/01/01/why_80_reject_paul_and_romney





Rush: Establishment "Afraid Newt Might Win," Because Their "Hearts Are Set on Romney"
http://youtu.be/pIOPvSKSk0o

Art Laffer: Gingrich Has Done It Before, Has Best Economic Plan

http://youtu.be/dRCgN8jgCgI

New York Times
As Gingrich Reels From Attack Ads, Some Aides Suggest Fighting Back

By Trip Gabriel

Published: December 30, 2011

DES MOINES — Alarmed by Newt Gingrich’s decline in the polls in the face of a fusillade of negative advertisements, some senior aides and grass-roots supporters have suggested that he reverse course and fight fire with fire, fearing for the future of his candidacy if he does not.

Mr. Gingrich’s vow to stay positive draws applause at every stop of his winding Iowa bus tour, but polls raise questions about that strategy as attack ads against him from his opponents’ campaigns and independent groups have seeped into voters’ minds.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/31/us/politics/gingrichs-aides-urge-him-to-fight-back-against-attack-ads.html

PBS video: Washington Week: On the Trail: The Iowa Caucuses, December 29, 2011.
http://youtu.be/dOq95QNbPIc

New York Times
Group’s Ads Rip at Gingrich as Romney Stands Clear
Restore Our Future has spent close to $3 million in Iowa alone.
By Nicholas Confessore and Jim Rutenberg
Published: December 30, 2011

DES MOINES — The attacks began three weeks ago and have not let up since: Television ad after television ad slamming Newt Gingrich for having “more baggage than the airlines,” for being fined by Congress for ethics violations, for his position on illegal immigration, even for admitting that he has made mistakes on the campaign trail.

Democrats and Republicans alike have singled out the $2.8 million-and-counting air deluge as the biggest factor in Mr. Gingrich’s precipitous drop in polls of Iowa voters and Mitt Romney’s corresponding rise, reshaping the critical first contest of the Republican primary season to Mr. Romney’s benefit.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/31/us/politics/restore-our-future-attack-ads-harm-gingrich-in-iowa.html


The Washington Post
GOP’s election battle plan: Use Obama’s own words against him
By Peter Wallsten
Published: January 1, 2012

With Republican voters in Iowa set to finally begin picking a nominee to challenge President Obama, GOP officials in Washington are quietly and methodically finishing what operatives are calling “the book” — 500 pages of Obama quotes and video links that will form the backbone of the party’s attack strategy against the president leading up to Election Day 2012.

The document, portions of which were reviewed by The Washington Post, lays out how GOP officials plan to use Obama’s words and voice as they build an argument for his defeat: that he made specific promises and entered office with lofty expectations and has failed to deliver on both.

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gops-battle-plan-against-obama-use-his-own-words-against-him/2011/12/30/gIQA7ZrPUP_story.html




http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/rss/politics/campaigns


http://www.youtube.com/user/ngingrich


http://townhall.com/columnists/kevinmccullough/

MSM 'til the day they die: Morning after Casey Anthony murder acquittal, NY Times gives column one to illegal aliens from Mexico -who AREN'T here!

Above, Wednesday morning's New York Times was a picture of a newspaper that couldn't help itself from engaging in the worst (dumbest) sort of faux high-minded editorial judgment.

Where we set our scene: the Panera Bread location in Hallandale Beach, south of The Duo condo towers, right next to the Diplomat Country Club.

(Yes, as in the great Diplomat LAC battle of last year, which we won.)

July 6, 2011 photos by South Beach Hoosier.

Mainstream Media 'til the day they die...

So am I the only person in the country that noticed that the morning after the Casey Anthony murder acquittal, the N.Y. Times gives column one over to a story about illegal aliens from Mexico -who AREN'T even HERE?

It's like the Times has a Black fraternity insignia burned into their shoulders like... -well, you know who you are out there- and can't see that their loyalty to the group over the larger society as a whole must have some logical limits.

But no...

Mainstream Media 'til the day they die...

Let this be a self-evident lesson to those of you who have scoffed in the past when well-known conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and others have tweaked the MSM's patronizing and self-absorbed missing-the-trees-for-the-forest/liberal nature by saying what the prospective headlines might be in the N.Y. Times following various catastrophes.

Something along the lines of, well, say,

"Species-killer asteroid crashes into North Atlantic creating deadly tsunamis; poor and minorities will be especially hard-hit say experts."

This is something that American conservatives have been saying with various variations since William Buckley's "Firing Line" TV show was a staple of PBS and one of the very few overtly conservative outlets in American media.

The N.Y. Times article in column one that I have referenced above has one title in print and another one online.

The print version that you see for yourself above reads:

Better Lives for Mexicans Cut Allure of Going North

Shifts in Jobs and Education Are Cited in Decline of Illegal Traffic to U.S.

Online, it's...

Changes in Mexico Slow Illegal Immigration to U.S.

By Damien Cave

July 6, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/06/world/americas/immigration.html

-----

In case you were wondering, yes, I AM going to be highlighting the Miami Herald's perfectly awful coverage of the Casey Anthony trial in Orlando and how poorly-served South Florida was served by the largest newspaper in the country's fourth largest state.

In particular, the Herald's very curious (questionable) choices of where to run the stories they deigned to run -when they ran any- and almost always without any photos of any kind.

Given the abysmal daily coverage thru the forty-something day trial, you'd almost think that

a.) Miami wasn't in the same state as Orlando, and that,

b.) the Herald's management just wished the Casey Anthony story would go away.

Hmm-m...

Yes, just more of what I have been complaining about in this space for years with regard to the self-evident and dramatic decline of Herald management and reporting in far-too-many areas.

That essay of mine will be here before you know it, and as I always remind you here, nothing quite says neglect like evidence, especially photographic proof of that neglect.

C-SPAN to air Glenn Beck's 'Restoring Honor' Rally LIVE on Saturday morning on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial from 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

C-SPAN to air Glenn Beck's 'Restoring Honor' Rally LIVE on Saturday morning on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial from 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

Beck will be joined by Sarah Palin, Jo Dee Messina, Alveda King (niece of Martin Luther King, Jr.) and many more in a non-political event paying tribute to America's service personnel and other citizens who embody the spirit of our nation's founding principles. Net proceeds raised by the event will benefit the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization that provides scholarship grants and educational and family counseling to the children of special operations personnel who lose their lives and immediate financial assistance to severely wounded special operations personnel and their families.


Washington Post
Beck rally will be a measure of 'tea party' strength
Beck's decision to speak on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech leads to criticism by social activists and civil rights leaders.
By Amy Gardner Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 26, 2010

When Fox News and talk radio host Glenn Beck comes to Washington this weekend to headline a rally intended to "restore honor" to America, he will test the strength - and potentially expose the weaknesses - of a conservative grass-roots movement that remains an unpredictable force in the country's politics.

Beck, who is both admired and assailed for his faith-based patriotism and his brash criticism of President Obama, plans in part to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. as an American hero.

He will speak on the anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech, from the spot where King delivered it

Read the rest of the article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/25/AR2010082507203.html

I am by no means the first person to say this, but however large or small the attendance at a three-hour rally in sweltering Washington at the end of August is, will neither prove nor disproves how fundamentally strong the Tea Party is in its various incarnations in all 50 states.

Very strong in some regions of the U.S. for reasons both geographic and cultural, while only so-so in other places where strong party politics are a foreign concept because political independence was already prized long before there was a Tea Party Movement -like Maine.
That's why we have elections, instead of political rallies at football stadiums.

And yet the MSM just can't accept this explanation.
They keep wanting this event on Saturday to stand for something else, something many of them clearly don't personally like -as if that wasn't noticeable at all in all of the media coverage.

It's a rally for people with some common goals and desires to come together and get enthused about the hard work that lays ahead.
That's it.

I especially encourage my friends overseas to watch for yourself and see how the U.S. media's depiction of this has, again, been much less than truthful. To see the live stream of the rally on Saturday, go to http://newsforamericans.blogspot.com/2010/08/glenn-beck-restoring-honor-rally-stream.html


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMGpBCllHWs



Since I've never mentioned it here before, I listen every day to Glenn Beck's daily morning nationally-syndicated radio show and religiously watch or tape his weekday 5 p.m TV show on Fox News Channel -or the encore broadcast at 2 a.m.- just about every day, having given NPR the boot in the morning quite some time ago as I've previously commented here, since if Diane Rehm has a guest or topic I'm interested in, I know that I can always go to the website and listen to it again over the weekend.
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/44014/

But just like Rush Limbaugh's nationally-syndicated afternoon radio show, if you don't listen to Beck's show when it's on, you completely lose the immediacy of what's on his mind and his listeners across the country.

To imagine, as some do, that these two men don't really have a great influence on what the MSM deigns to discuss on other TV chat programs or what will appear in elite newspapers or news magazines, is to harbor a delusion of America that's simply at odds with reality. Nobody 'accidentally' listens to the show every day.

Speaking of numbers and their portent, it's a good thing for Katie Couric that eyeballs alone don't tell the tale of someone's fundamental fitness the way the WaPo seems to want to judge this weekend's rally, or else she'd be out on her butt after CBS Evening News just received it's lowest weekly ratings EVER.
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/08/25/katie-couric-and-rush-ratings

If her name wasn't Katie Couric, she's already have been shown the door, like Campbell Brown at CNN.

Not that you would know any of that if you depended on the Miami Herald to make sense of the current media world, as her stewardship there at CBS is never mentioned.

If there's a major newspaper in the country that's more unsophisticated and behind-the-ball than the Herald in its coverage of media in its various guises, considering the people who live here, I don't what paper that could be.
It's truly abysmal with a capital "A."

See also:
Brian Williams: Katie Couric 'Always Welcome' at NBC
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/generalities/brian_williams_katie_couric_always_welcome_at_nbc_171045.asp

See details on Saturday's rally at: http://www.glennbeck.com/828/

See the Washington Post's online chat with Brendan Steinhauser, Director, Federal and State Campaigns, FreedomWorks, from yesterday at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2010/08/26/DI2010082603846.html

http://www.glennbeck.com/extreme/