On her show tonight, Rachel Maddow interviewed Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania. Ms. Maddow was discussing the fact that the Tea Party protesters get lots of media coverage, well beyond what the number of people attending the rallies would justify. She also reported on some pro-tax, pro-government rallies. Here is the link to "The Rachel Maddow Show" website. I cannot link to the segment because today's show has not been posted yet.
Governor Rendell made some excellent points including that government effectively managed can make a real difference in the lives of people, that Democrats are afraid to stand up for the true principles of the Democratic Party, that Democrats will be successful in November if they can get their liberal and traditional base to turn out but that Democratic politicians need to give that base a reason to turn out, and that Democrats have not done a good job making clear to the American people what we stand for.
I have always liked Governor Rendell, and he really got it right tonight. He also commented on the inordinate amount of coverage that the mainstream media gives to the Tea Party protests. So I decided to look around for coverage of the pro-tax "Save our State" rally in Springfield, Illinois today. The Chicago Tribune ran a story on it that was picked up by the Boston Herald, but that was it for mainstream media. No report from Fox News, nothing from The New York Times.
Here are first two paragraphs from an article by John O'Connor, an AP political writer that was on the bnd.com website (here).
Crying "Raise our taxes!" and "Show some guts!", thousands of people rallied at the state Capitol on Wednesday to protest lawmakers' inaction on a tax hike to fix a $13 billion deficit.The secretary of state's police estimated 15,000 people showed up, making it one of the largest rallies in Illinois Statehouse history.
That is a big rally but the national media doesn't cover it, but they cover a few thousand a Tea Party rally all the time.
Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal
15,000 people and no national news pickup?! That's very interesting, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI remember watching my 2 friends argue during the 2004 elections about why Democrats were always on the defensive. One of them claimed that if we had more of a controlling stake in Legislative/Executive branches, we'd naturally be on the offensive. Yet here we are.
I hope, like you do, that we begin to speak proudly and openly about our values and principles. I certainly don't understand who we're so afraid of offending when the opposition's loudest voices right now are the Tea Partiers.
Thanks for your comment. There was no reference in the print version of The New York Times this morning either.
ReplyDeleteAs you can see from my first post today, the Democrats had a good day in terms of standing up for what they believe in.