Asses & Elephants In The Room

Rarely does the media bother to police itself. And only in circumstances where a story can be made of it are the flubs and inconsistencies of media-friendly individuals ever noticed or questioned.

Luckily, we have one of those rare articles in the New York Times today.

I would be so impressed if someone were motivated enough to record all the "soft spots" for each of the candidates. It would be an interesting matrix of ignored and downplayed information - we could probably even develop a set of categories that all of the candidates would fall into.

Let's see, there'd be...

Failed Private Lives: Giuliani & kids, Bill & Hill & "sex", etc.

Failed Campaigns: Edwards for VP, Kucinich for Cleveland Mayor, Ohio Governor, Pres, etc.

Failed to Toe the Line: McCain on campaign finance, Thompson on Medicare, Gore on climate change, etc.

There are so many others... Suggestions?

Here's the list of all the potentials (with their campaign sites):

Steve Adams
Donald Allen
Alan Augustson
Joe Biden
John Bowles
Elaine Brown
Sam Brownback
Wesley Clark
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Christopher Dodd
John Edwards
James Gilchrist
Jim Gilmore
Newt Gingrich
Rudy Giuliani
Al Gore
Mike Gravel
Mike Huckabee
Duncan Hunter
Bob Jackson
Mike Jingozian
David Koch
Dennis Kucinich
Steve Kubby
John McCain
James McCall
Kent Mesplay
Barack Obama
Ron Paul
George Phillies
Bill Richardson
Mitt Romney
Christine Smith
Kat Swift
Tom Tancredo
Fred Thompson
Tommy Thompson

Well, the field is full, and we have a long year + of campaigning to go before these are filed down to the two richest, best-connected, best-publicized, photogenic & media-savvy contenders.

Do I sound cynical?

The take-home message: Feel free to doctor your resumes, people. If a future president can do it, so can you! (And really, what's our obsession with honesty and accurate self-representation anyway? Our country was founded on bullshit! No, seriously, read some history.)

From the New York Times:
May 17, 2007
For ’08 Résumés, Don’t Ask Them to Fill in Blanks
By MARK LEIBOVICH

WASHINGTON, May 16 — Stealing a page from the Soviet playbook, the current crop of presidential candidates has taken to eliminating whole chapters of their histories.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s turbulent final years as first lady? While Mrs. Clinton, Democrat of New York, frequently invokes husband Bill on the stump, she has managed to avoid any mention of his impeachment and the unpleasantness leading to it.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, almost never brings up campaign finance overhaul, perhaps his signature achievement in the Senate. The McCain-Feingold law is loathed by many of the conservatives Mr. McCain is courting, and he typically only discusses the measure when opponents hurl it at him — as Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, did in a debate on Tuesday.

For his part, Mr. Romney likes to promote his experience as a governor, but is often coy about where he governed. (Hint: it is viewed by many Republicans as an outpost of run-amok liberalism.) In campaign ads running in early primary states, Mr. Romney boasts that he was “the Republican governor who turned around a Democratic state” and “vetoed hundreds of spending appropriations.” But you would never know where.

Didn’t John Edwards once run for vice president? Mr. Edwards, a Democrat and former senator from North Carolina, tends to erase his stint as What’s His Name’s running mate four years ago.
It is no revelation that campaigns conspicuously omit things. There are always unpleasant facts, episodes or viewpoints that run counter to the public self a candidate is marketing. But one of the striking features of the 2008 campaigns is the pungency of the various elephants in the various rooms. Candidates are strenuously de-emphasizing or ignoring altogether experiences that are defining and, in many cases, extremely well known.

“There’s always a tension between what can be said, what should be said and what must be said,” said Edward Widmer, a historian at Brown University who worked as a speechwriter for Mr. Clinton. “The first candidate to calibrate this tension may move to the head of the pack.”
In recent days, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor and a Republican candidate, has spoken forcefully of his support of abortion rights, something that placed him at odds with many in his party, and something he spoke little about until recently.

Still unspoken, for the most part: Mr. Giuliani’s delicate family situation. His campaign Web site includes nothing about his children, with whom he reportedly has strained relations. They are, in effect, airbrushed from “Rudy’s Story” (the heading of the biographical section on the Web site).
While Mr. Giuliani has embraced his New York identity, Mr. Romney has effectively run screaming from Massachusetts, a prime breeding ground for presidential also-rans — Senator John Kerry, Michael J. Dukakis, Paul Tsongas and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, among others.

It is also a recurring villain among Republicans, a view distilled in a wisecrack by a former House majority leader, Dick Armey, Republican of Texas, when Democrats announced that their 2004 convention would be held in Boston.

“If I were a Democrat,” Mr. Armey said, “I would feel a heck of a lot more comfortable in Boston than, say, America.”

When Mr. Romney does mention Massachusetts, it is hardly with native pride: Responding to a question during the debate, he referred to his home of almost 40 years as “that very difficult state” and “the toughest of states.”

In an internal Romney campaign memorandum obtained by The Boston Globe in February, Massachusetts is listed as a potentially effective “bogeyman” for Mr. Romney (along with “European-style socialism,” “Jihadism” and “Hillary Clinton.”)

“Romney is trying to say that he foiled a robbery in a brothel, the brothel being Massachusetts,” said Ralph Whitehead, a political analyst at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. “But the question people will ask is, what was he doing in the brothel in the first place?”

Mr. Romney chose to formally announce his candidacy in Michigan. He grew up there. His dad was governor there. He spoke effusively about the place (“We love Michigan”), and of how he’d always dreamed of coming back.

During a speech last month, Mr. Romney waxed poetic about a recent trip to his summer home. In New Hampshire.

When uncomfortable topics do emerge, campaigns can become touchy, underscoring the extent to which they have rendered the subject taboo.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign did not respond kindly, for instance, when David Geffen, a supporter of Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, made critical comments to the columnist Maureen Dowd of The New York Times about the former first couple, with allusions to Mr. Clinton’s “reckless” conduct. A spokesman for the former First Lady promptly called on Mr. Obama to disavow Mr. Geffen; he demurred, and the elephant that is the Clinton marital history receded, for now.

Mr. Obama has presented himself as a fresh face, unsteeped in Washington and the proverbial “politics as usual.” It is, to be sure, a cornerstone of his appeal, but also an effort to turn what many could see as a potential handicap — his inexperience — into an asset.

Mr. Widmer, the Brown University historian, says that owning up to a perceived shortcoming can “provide a healthy exhalation” for a candidate, “if a politician’s exhalation can be said to improve air quality.”

Just as he rarely talks about his vice presidential campaign, Mr. Edwards can be equally reticent about his time in the Senate. He has promoted himself in this campaign as a Washington outsider, an anti-war, anti-poverty crusader (Elephants crossing on Little Guy street: Mr. Edwards’ eight-figure wealth, gigantic home and $400 haircut).

Others have been haunted by their legislative history. Mr. McCain has been attacked over the McCain-Feingold law by a host of Republicans, including Mr. Romney in both candidates’ debates.

In an interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News last month, Mr. McCain characterized campaign finance as a Beltway issue.

“Outside of Washington, I never have anybody stand up and talk about McCain-Feingold,” he said. “There’s nobody who ever does.” Himself included.