The Atlantic - Why the Press Loves Jon Huntsman but Ignores Ron Paul
Submitted by rp311 on Mon, 08/22/2011 - 16:53Aug 22 2011, 7:30 AM ET
The media is fascinated by protest candidates who critique their own parties, but it marginalizes those who attack the establishment.
Jon Huntsman won't win the GOP nomination, or so pundits assure us. But he is getting press attention anyway because he decided to start telling his fellow Republicans truths that they don't want to hear. In quick succession, he trumpeted his belief in evolution, said climate change is caused by humans, and insisted that it was essential to raise the debt ceiling. Says James Fallows, "I'm relieved to see someone in the party trying to pull it back from the abyss." (Me too.) Andrew Sullivan goes even farther. "Huntsman has a prophetic role in this campaign if he chooses to adopt it: the truth-teller," he writes. "His chances are so slim, he loses nothing by speaking this candidly."
In a Vogue spread on the former Utah governor, Jacob Weisberg gives the fullest articulation of why so many journalists are covering a campaign that, by their own estimation, almost certainly won't succeed: "Huntsman looks like a protest candidate -- less a figure of the current Republican Zeitgeist than a canny challenger to his party's orthodoxy. But his lack of traction thus far doesn't feel exactly like failure," he writes. "Running from behind brings a freedom to speak one's mind, which can affect the political conversation for the better. Like Eugene McCarthy in 1968, Bruce Babbitt in 1988, and John McCain in 2000, Huntsman seems already to have become a media darling -- a thinking person's candidate whose candor shines a light on the evasions of his rivals, even if it fails to change the outcome of the race." Persuasive, no?
And refreshing, in a way. Rather than obsess over the horse race 15 months before a presidential election, broadcast, Web and print journalists are self-consciously covering a campaign for its substance, even speculating that doing so might have a positive effect on the national conversation. As much as I agree with Sullivan, Fallows, Weisberg, and all the other journalists praising Huntsman for challenging orthodoxies of thought in the GOP, however, I am struck by the very different standards that govern coverage of two other candidates, Ron Paul and Gary Johnson.
Continued Here---> http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/08/why-the-...
Maybe you read it wrong.. or I did
From what I read (yes, I actually read things) he was not bashing RP for his stance on the gold standard.
He was saying that the PRESS uses RP's stance on the gold standard to treat him differently than other candidates. This is true. Anything that the numbheads behind the anchor desk can't understand gets called 'fringe' or 'radical' and left out of the conversation.
I felt the article did a lot to point out that RP's ideas aren't so fringe.. it's just that some of them aren't 'mainstream enough'. So, instead of risking the potential that a viewer or listener of a program would ask a question the anchor/commentator cannot answer (due to a lack of understanding of the subject matter), the press just tries to leave RP out of it completely.
Better to look like you have bias against a candidate than have to actually educate yourself on the candidates' platform.
CF
The Constitution mandates
The Constitution mandates that only silver or gold can be used as our money. That makes the gold standard a fringe issue.
The author is years behind the times, IMO
Quote:
"that Ron Paul, for example, disqualifies himself from serious coverage due to fringe positions he takes on the Federal Reserve or the gold standard."
Fringe positions??????
He is grasping at straws, hoping someone will read and actually believe this trash.
Thanks for reporting this story.