The fix to this year’s presidential election is already in. It seems certain that as the 2004 campaign unfolds, the media will successfully undermine the credibility the Democratic challenger at the same time that it heaps praise on Bush. As a result, unless the Democratic Party can come up with a superior strategy for getting its message out, it will be all but impossible to undo the media’s spin and set the record straight. And in the end, on election day, it is extremely likely that the media will be successful in pulling the wool over the public’s eyes just as it did during the 2000 election.

SUMMARY

As a foreshadowing of how the media will undoubtedly try to influence the general election, one must only look at how they have been successful in skewing voter’s perceptions about Howard Dean during the Democratic primary campaign. From very early on in this race, Dean was depicted as a hot-head and given the nickname “mean Dean” by GOP talk radio and the mainstream media alike. Also from very early on, Dean was depicted by both talk radio and factions within the Democratic establishment, as being too liberal to ever win the general election. As a result of these mischaracterizations, the leading stories in the mainstream media about Dean have been dominated by the question of whether Dean was simply too angry and too liberal to be electable.

The claim that Dean was too liberal to be electable was first put forward on GOP talk radio, a venue which it is important to note, has regularly labeled all of the Democratic candidates except Lieberman, as left-wing wackos. The depiction of Dean as an ultra-liberal was quickly seconded by the Democratic Leadership Council — a centrist, some might even say right-leaning, faction within the Democratic establishment — that has, coincidentally or not, concurred with talk radio that its former chairman, Joe Lieberman was the only candidate most able to win against Bush. Added to this mix was the idea put forward by the mainstream media that Dean’s opposition to the war with Iraq was somehow an extremely liberal position, even though polls showed that the majority of Democrats agreed with it. To cap all of this off, when Dean stated that he did not believe that Americans were safer because of Saddam Hussein’s capture, he was lambasted from all sides — including talk radio, the mainstream media, the Democratic establishment, and most of his Democratic rivals — as if he had said something that was so extreme that he was being irresponsible — even though polls showed that a majority of Americans agreed with his statement. As a result of all of these mischaracterizations, even though Dean’s record as Governor of Vermont shows him to be well within the mainstream of the Democratic party, the media has been largely successful in convincing the public that Dean stands so far to the left of mainstream America that he would be unelectable.

Even though the depiction of Dean as too angry and too out of control to be president was never backed up with concrete evidence, the media saw an opportunity to prove this mischaracterization when it incessantly broadcast the last 15 seconds of Dean’s post-Iowa speech. If the video-byte that the media chose to repeat incessantly would have been shown in its context, it should have been clear to most people that Dean — instead of being angry or out of control, was simply being enthusiastic in thanking his supporters. And yet all that most of the public saw of Dean’s post-Iowa speech was Dean yelling and red-faced accompanied by the media’s characterization that he had clearly lost it. As a result, the repeated airing of this clip did more for the “anybody but Dean” movement than any logical attack against him ever could, in turning off many voters who previously might have supported Dean’s candidacy. One must wonder: If the media, in their attempt at character assassination by video-byte did not intend to hurt Dean’s chances for the Democratic nomination, why in the world would they have handled this clip in the way they did?.

After Dean’s loss in Iowa, the media tried to paint the picture that it was all over for the Dean campaign. This prognostication combine with the months of media coverage questioning Dean’s electability, his loss in Iowa and significantly the “scream” video seems to have succeeded in planting the seeds of doubt in the minds of many primary voters. And now that Dean is no longer the perceived front-runner, many former Dean supporters in their natural desire to unite around a single candidate seem to be leaving the Dean camp in droves.

Whether or not Dean succeeds at becoming this year’s candidate, the Democratic party nevertheless owes him a debt of gratitude for changing the nature of this contest. Because Dean surged into front-runner status by forcefully challenging Bush — Bush’s policies and the special interests most served by his administration — a majority of Dean’s original positions have subsequently been adopted by many of his rivals. The fact that most of the Democratic contenders are now strongly denouncing Bush makes it much less likely that the eventual candidate will repeat the same pathetic mistake made during the 2002 mid-terms of trying to win Democratic votes after kissing Bush’s feet. At the bare minimum, Dean’s candidacy has made many of his competitors into stronger candidates, who will now be better able to articulate their positions and candidacies as clear alternatives to Bush.

In addition to changing the nature of the debate, the Dean campaign must also be credited with creating what can only be called a “movement” which involved thousands of ordinary people in the political process, including many who had previously felt that they could not make a difference. By making people feel that they had the power to take their country back, the Dean campaign attracted volunteers in greater numbers and succeeded in raising more money, mostly in small donations, than any campaign in the history of American politics. The Democratic establishment should take notice of the successes of the Dean campaign because what Democrats need to do now more than anything else is to build a network of grassroots support as a way to bring new people into the party, raise the money needed to match Bush’s formidable war chest and employ a huge volunteer base who through personal contact, might have the best chance at combating what will ultimately be the media’s pro-Bush spin during the general election. Without the ability of Democrats to do these things, it will be hard, if not impossible for them to win in 2004.

What voters in the upcoming Democratic primaries must fully understand is that no matter who is the eventual Democratic nominee, he will be just as susceptible to the attacks by the media during the general election as Howard Dean was during the primaries. While the media spin against Howard Dean which originated in the spring of 2003 on talk radio took its time to work its way through the mainstream media until it started to have a negative effect in January 2003; rest assured there is still plenty of time before the general election for these same methods of attack to work against any of the remaining candidates. In other words — because of how this election will be presented by the media — in the end Kerry will be no more electable than Dean.

This alone should give pause to voters in the upcoming primaries and hopefully get former supporters of Howard Dean to ask themselves whether their perception of Dean’s electability has been more influenced by the facts or whether it has been unduly influenced by the media’s spin. Ultimately, what will matter in the upcoming primaries is that voters can see through the media bias and vote for the candidate which has most inspired them, most engaged them in the process, and most convinced them that they were not powerless to help in the fight to not only take back the Whitehouse, but to take back America. To all of you voters in the upcoming primaries, the future of America is in your hands.

DETAILS

The media versus Gore

The media will determine the results of the 2004 election in much the same way that it succeeded in spinning the 2000 election in Bush’s favor. Throughout the 2000 campaign the media worked to stack the deck against Gore, most notably by characterizing him as a serial exaggerator, if not a chronic liar. We are all familiar with the biggest lies that Gore is purported to have told — that he invented the internet and discovered the toxic dump at the Love Canal — yet very few people know the extent that these alleged lies were based on quotes taken entirely out of context or even re-written by the RNC. While the “Gore Lies” were originally put in play by talk radio and other bastions of GOP spin, the mainstream media never bothered to look into its sources or do any investigative reporting of their own. Instead they chose to parrot the GOP spin nearly verbatim as if they were in collusion with the GOP to insure that Gore would lose.

As a result of the media distortions about Gore, many voters concluded that candidate Gore, simply could not be trusted to tell the truth. The importance of the issue of honesty in the 2000 election was made evident in exit polls where almost 25% of respondents cited that their perception of a candidate’s honesty was the most important factor in determining their vote. Significantly, of this 25%, over 80% voted for Bush while only 15% voted for Gore.

As a huge contrast to the way that the media treated Gore during the 2000 campaign, they generally did not call into question the many discrepancies of Bush’s statements. And if the media occasionally did cite Bush for his sleight of tongue, they usually attributed Bush’s poor choice of words to being no more than honest mistakes. Quite simply, the media attacked Gore at the same time that it deferred to Bush. If Bush misspoke it was reported as an honest mistake, but if Gore misspoke, it accentuated the presumption that he was a chronic liar.

Furthermore, during the 2000 Presidential campaign, while Gore was regularly put under a microscope, almost no one in the media asked hard questions about Bush's character, background or qualifications. The irregularities involved in Bush’s SEC filings on the sale of his Harken stock were already a known fact. The likelihood that Bush went AWOL from the National Guard and the extent of his past drug problems had long been strong suspicions. If these same sets of circumstances would have been brought to light about Gore’s past you could have been sure that they would have been the subject of extensive media coverage. And yet when the media looked into Bush’s past, it voiced its approval, by remaining nearly silent.

The media versus Dean

While Gore was the media’s whipping boy during the 2000 campaign, this distinction was given to Howard Dean during the 2004 primaries. Even though the spin about Dean has varied nominally from source to source, with Rush Limbaugh calling him “Nikita Dean” and many other GOP and mainstream media sources referring to him as “Mean Dean”, the message about Dean has been nearly universal. The media has tried to make the public believe that Dean is a loose cannon, who is so out of control that he committed a major gaffe every day; that Dean is too liberal, is too far out of the mainstream and perhaps most importantly is too angry to effectively challenge Bush in 2004. In a word, the media seems to have done everything its power to convince the public that Dean is “unelectable”.

A recent study by the media watchdog, the Center for Media and Public Affairs has confirmed some disturbing trends about the media coverage of this year’s Democratic primary. Surveying the nightly newscasts of the major networks, the group discovered that this year’s Democratic primary has somehow been deemed as less newsworthy than in previous years. According to the group’s findings, coverage of the 2004 Democratic primary is down 62% from 1996 in the last race, which involved an incumbent president. Significant to Dean’s status as the media’s whipping boy, the study found that only 49% of the coverage dedicated to Dean was deemed positive compared to 78% of the positive coverage dedicated to the rest of the Democratic candidates collectively.

The negative depiction of Dean by the media seems to have been effective in turning off many voters. For example, most of the people in my own informal survey of life-long Democrats seriously doubted that Dean could be elected. In particular most noted their concern that Dean might just be too angry to appeal to the majority. Since the people in my informal survey were voters whom I would consider to be more informed than the average citizen; it came as an even greater surprise to me that their reaction to a Dean candidacy and even their own talking points seemed to come straight out of the anti-Dean spin originally put forward on talk radio.

The Democratic establishment versus Dean

Very early on in this contest, the Democratic establishment joined in on the Dean bashing. In May 2003, the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) issued a memo, which warned that a Dean candidacy would result in Democrats becoming increasingly marginalized. This memo warned that the types of Democrats that were attracted to grassroots politics, which formed the basis for Dean’s campaign, did not represent the Democratic mainstream, but instead represented an elitist fringe within the party. Invoking the memories of the nominations of McGovern and Mondale which saw the Democrats lose 49 states in two elections, the DLC memo further cautioned that if the Democratic Party tacked too far to the left, in giving the nomination to Dean, it would be banished to the political wilderness.

As some background, the DLC was founded on the notion that Democratic politics needed to move beyond the traditional right vs. left debate and toward a more centrist and business friendly role for government. While the election of its former chairman Bill Clinton may have seemed to prove the DLC’s premise that a centrist stance was crucial to a candidate’s electability, the Democratic Party’s march toward the center has ultimately worked to blur the distinction between the two parties. To make matters worse, at the same time that Democrats began to adopt a more centrist approach, the Republicans tacked further to the right and along the way largely succeeded in co-opting morality and religious belief as part of their party plank. From a strictly historical perspective, the DLC’s success story really begins and ends with the 1992 election of Clinton. In 1994, the Republicans took over the House of Representatives and Democrats have suffered net losses in every congressional election ever since.

It is easy to understand why the DLC would be threatened by a Dean candidacy. In essence, Howard Dean came out of nowhere and rose to prominence in a field of much better known Democratic contenders without the need to rely on the Democratic establishment as the basis for his fundraising or support base. In the second half of 2003, Dean raised $5 million a month, far more than any previous Democratic contender, including Bill Clinton — not from large contributions which usually form the basis for most campaign fundraising — but mostly from small contributions of under $100. While campaign contributions for both parties usually come in large amounts from less than .01% of the population; if Dean had raised a total of $25 million mostly from an average donation of a hundred dollars, this meant that he had been able to gain support from something approaching 1% of the population, or ten times the norm. With this type of financial support, it was clear that Dean did not need the blessing of the Democratic establishment to be successful in his quest for the nomination.

One must suspect that the DLC’s decision to use scare tactics to undermine Dean’s credibility may have had more to do with the fact that they felt threatened by his candidacy — that they were more interested in protecting their own credibility — rather than being motivated from having the party’s best interests in mind. If this is true, then the DLC’s entire anti-Dean argument can be turned on its head. Drawing from their own attack on Dean, it may be argued that the DLC does not represent the Democratic mainstream but instead represents an elitist fringe driven by their craven desire to cling to power.

Leading Democrats out of the wilderness

The choice of this year’s Democratic presidential candidate is crucial because it will not only make the chances of defeating Bush either more or less probable, but it is also likely to determine the future direction of the Democratic Party for many years to come. In determining who should be the 2004 presidential candidate the questions that Democrats must face are multifaceted. Can the Democratic Party afford to continue playing by the DLC rulebook or is it is time for Democrats to stop playing nice, rediscover their core party principles and come out swinging? Should Clinton who is unlikely to abandon DLC principles continue to be the standard bearer for the party or do the Democrats need to find a fresher face? Should Terry McAuliffe continue to be the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and continue to lead the party into the political wilderness or is it time for a change?

For my own money, I would have to say that the Democratic Party has already drifted so far toward the center that it already occupies a political no-man’s-land. By catering to the center, the Democrats have developed a message problem so severe that it has become harder and harder to distinguish them from Republicans. For example, during the 2002 midterm elections, while the Republicans were united in their message of being the party best able to protect the national security — which at the time included their 100% unity in authorizing force against Iraq — the Democratic strategy on national security was all across the board. And even on domestic issues of the economy, social security and health care the Democrats failed to take a unified stand.

The fact that Democrats were afraid to take on Bush directly during the 2002 mid-term elections was perhaps the biggest contributing factor to their losses in that election. Although at the time, it might have seemed like political suicide to criticize such a popular president; if the Democrats had created a unified message that highlighted Bush’s extreme positions on the environment, tax cuts for the rich, and the assault on civil rights, they could have made the case that voting Democratic would at the very least work to slow Bush down by insuring that all branches of government were not controlled by one party.

In the aftermath of the 2002 midterm elections, it seemed probable that the Democrats would repeat their failure to take a tough stand against Bush during the 2004 presidential elections. It seemed entirely likely that much of the nonsense which took place during the midterms which saw Democrats lavishing praise on Bush and then telling the public to vote Democratic, would be repeated in 2004. In reviewing the 2002 elections, it even seemed possible that the 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate’s campaign strategy would border on the absurd in telling the American people about how much he liked Bush, how much he respected his policies — but then attempting to compel voters to elect him because he was more like Bush than Bush was.

After the 2002 midterms it seemed clear to me that the only way for Democrats to win in 2004 would be to challenge Bush directly. In the aftermath of the 2002 elections, as a call to arms, I previously wrote: “The first step of challenging Bush on the issues will be to show who most clearly benefits and who most clearly loses from his policies. Clearly the majority of Bush’s policies have been the greatest benefit to tax-sheltered corporations, flagrant polluters, de-regulated corporate book cookers, price gouging drug manufacturers, international treaty breakers and unilateralist diplomacy wreckers. The people who lose the most from Bush’s policies are the middle and lower classes, anyone who has to breathe the air or drink the water, anyone who needs prescription drugs and anyone with the desire for world peace and cooperation; or in other words, most of the rest of us. Although it may seem obvious who Bush allies himself with and to what extent he is willing to reward his supporters, this message has never been brought to the American people in a compelling way that would make these facts both poignant and motivational. If it could be made clear where Bush stands on the issues, it would be hard for the majority of people to continue to support him.”

Is it over for Howard Dean?

Currently the media would have you beleive that Howard Dean's quest for the presidency is already over. Until recently Howard Dean was perceived as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination because he had raised more money and had more declared supporters than any of the other candidates. The attacks on Dean by both the media and the Democratic establishment have been based on the premise that Dean is simply too liberal and too angry to be electable. Yet, to separate the facts from the spin it is important to ask what evidence forms the factual basis for these claims.

Regarding the claim that Dean is too liberal, Dean himself describes himself as a social liberal and a fiscal conservative and his record as governor of Vermont shows just that. By looking into Dean’s positions on the issues over the years, it would be hard to call him extremely liberal within the context of the Democratic Party. In fact, even on issues that are divisive in America politics, for example his opposition to the war with Iraq and his stand against Bush’s tax cuts for the rich; Dean’s positions has been similar to the majority of Democrats. Based on his record and proposals, Dean simply does not stand apart from the mainstream, while many Democrats would say that he is not liberal enough. And yet both the Democratic establishment and the media have done a tremendous job at convincing the public that Dean is just too far left to be elected.

The second argument against Dean’s electability, primarily taken up by the media, is that he was too out of control and too angry to be good presidential material. While Dean had been known as “mean Dean” in talk radio circles for since the summer of 2003, the media never did offer any examples to back up this claim. Unfortunately the recent repeated airing of the 15 second clip from the speech he made after the Iowa caucuses, has worked to convince more and more people that this argument was true.

Now, I personally listened to Dean’s Iowa speech on the radio as it was happening and I must say that his delivery did not seem angry or even unseemly to me. In fact I found Dean’s speech inspiring for its defiance, being as it was meant to thank his supporters and assure them that despite the loss in Iowa that the campaign would continue and prevail.

Even with the visuals, when a longer segment of the speech is viewed, Dean’s 15 second scream at the end can be seen in context and would probably be viewed more as excitement than anger by most people. CBSNews.com's Dick Meyer, noted that from what he could gather about the event was that even “the reporters in the room when Dean allegedly wigged out didn't think there was anything odd about it. It seemed appropriate and unremarkable. … he did what politicians and coaches do at pep rallies.” And yet the incessantly repeated image of Dean excited and shouting, when taken out of context, succeeded in having the desired effect of making Dean seem angry and out of control.

One must wonder what motivated the media to air the final 15 seconds of this speech, taken out of its larger context, over and over again when it only could have been intended to create a drastically skewed perception of Dean. In the end, this bit of videotape has perhaps done more for the “anybody but Dean” movement, than any logical argument against him ever could. The video-bytes that the networks chose to air again and again, succeeded in their intended purpose by making Dean seem to be out of control, even if he wasn’t.

While the Democratic establishment may for the moment be satisfied that the “anybody but Dean” movement has finally seemed to gain traction, all Democrats should be put on notice that the same tactics that were used by the media against Dean will ultimately be used against whoever is the eventual Democratic nominee. Rest assured that as the nomination process progresses, the current front-runner will be attacked just as relentlessly as Dean was.

For example, after Kerry’s win in Iowa and his surge in the polls in New Hampshire, it clear that the GOP attack dogs have now been unleashed on him. Included in today’s (1/25/04) brief sampling of talk radio, were the accusations that Kerry was guilty of war crimes during the Viet Nam war, that his subsequent stance against the war was just a stepping stone for his plan to get into politics, that during his anti-Viet Nam protest days he participated in un-American activities by collaborating with known communist groups; and so on. Up until Kerry’s victory in Iowa, it was Dean who bore the brunt of candidate bashing by the media and now because Dean is no longer perceived as the front-runner, it is certain that the media will now increasingly turn its venom on John Kerry.

Lessons for the Democratic Party from the Dean Campaign

Even if Dean does not ultimately gain the Democratic nomination, his campaign will still have been extremely successful in influencing the positions of many of the other candidates. From the beginning of his campaign, Dean strongly put forward the idea that anything short of taking on Bush head on, would result in failure. When Dean’s name was still unknown to most of the American public, he came out strongly against the war with Iraq, the Bush tax cuts and the failure to fund the “No Child Left Behind” legislation. Moreover, Dean strongly positioned himself as the antidote for the failures of the Bush administration. As Dean was fond of saying, “You can’t beat Bush with Bush Lite.”

In the course of this primary campaign, most of the other candidates — as a way to co-opt the issues which they perceived were the cause of Dean’s front-runner status — have ultimately adopted many of the positions that Dean put forward from the start. As a result, if only because Dean was able to change the nature of the debate about how to defeat Bush, he has put the Democrats in a much better position to choose a candidate who will be a clear alternative to Bush.

The media has gone after Howard Dean during this campaign just as it went after Al Gore during 2000, with pointed attacks that have replaced the intelligent discussion of their records with sensationalistic sound bytes taken out of context. At the same time, the media has worked to protect Bush from all of the stupid things that he has said or done.

The deference of the media toward Bush and against his detractors, which began during the 2000 campaign, has shown no sign of letting up ever since. For example, if you want information about anything that is controversial in American politics that might shed a bad light on Bush — whether it is the warnings given to the U.S. government about 9/11, the fact twisting involved in the lead-up to the war with Iraq or an honest analysis of the effect of Bush’s tax cuts — you will have to turn to the European media because the American media simply does not report on anything that might make Bush look bad. As it stands, the hard questions about the Bush administration are still not getting asked by the American mainstream media. And with a few exceptions Bush almost always gets a free pass.

The campaign of Howard Dean has been tremendously successful in awakening the civic duties of people who previously might have thought that they couldn’t make a difference. Instead of drawing on the Democratic establishment for contributions or talent, the Dean organization was able to create what can only be called a “movement” which has successfully used grassroots techniques to involve ordinary people in the political process. What the Democratic establishment must understand is that now, more than ever, it needs this type of grassroots support and it needs to bring previously inactive people into the fold. If Dean does not get the nomination, what remains to be seen is whether the energy and the grassroots support of the Dean campaign will be readily transferable to another campaign.

The problem for the Democrats this year is that no matter who wins the nomination and no matter how much money they raise, the historical precedents more or less prove that the mainstream media will ultimately work against them at the same time that it works in Bush’s favor. For this reason alone, it will be essential that the Democrats have a vast organization of grassroots volunteers on the ground who might offer the only hope of countering the media spin.

What seems clear in this election is that Democrats must choose a candidate who offers a clear alternative to Bush, a candidate who can raise a ton of money to match Bush’s war chest, a candidate who will enjoy tremendous grassroots support and a candidate that has the power to inspire ordinary citizens to participate in the political process. Voters in the upcoming primaries must carefully consider whether their candidate can embody all of these factors and be warned that in their desire to choose a candidate that is “electable, that they don’t choose a candidate who is in fact weaker than their natural first choice.

My advice to all voters in the upcoming Democratic primaries is this: be careful about hedging your bets, the future of the Democratic party and the future of America is in your hands. Before you cast your ballot you should carefully consider whether you are voting for a candidate because you really believe in him or because you bought into the media’s claim that Dean was unelectable. For those voters who had previously supported Dean but are now thinking of voting for someone else, the question is this: do you want to refuse to buy into the media’s biased depiction of Dean now or do you want to be sold a bill of goods later when the eventual Democratic nominee turns out to be only Bush Lite?

- Dean Heagle ©2004

Notes and references

The media versus Gore

What's the real story behind Al Gore Inventing the Internet?
Mountain Democrat

Why the Media Lies
MakeThemAccountable.com

How Gore lost his head
The Guardian

Gored by the Media Bull: Why the past would have been prologue for Al in 2004
The American Prospect

Serial Exaggerators: Media's double standard on political lying
Fair.org (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting)

The media versus Dean

Dean Agonistes: Like Al Gore, the former Vermont governor is taking unfair hits.
Memphis Flyer

The media vs. Howard Dean
Salon.com

Study: Dean Trails in Race for Positive Press: Network Election Coverage Down 62% From 1996
Center for Media and Public Affairs

The Dean Dilemma
Newsweek

Study: Network News Criticizes Dean Most
Associated Press

Dean errs in battling the New Democrats
Boston Globe

The Democratic establishment versus Dean

The Real Soul of the Democratic Party
Democratic Leadership Council

Centrist Democrats Warn Party Not to Present Itself as 'Far Left'
New York Times

Activists Are Out of Step
DLC editorial
Los Angeles Times

About the Democratic Leadership Council: Who We Are:
Democratic Leadership Council

Republicans' Favorite Democrats
The American Prospect

Dean, Bobby and the Ghost of Landslides Past
Common Dreams News Center

Dean Gaff Prompts Attack from DLC
GOPUSA (website of the RNC)

The Anybody-But-Dean Syndrome
Alternet

Dean Fundraising Sets Party Record: Goal of Matching Bush Is Still Far Off
Washington Post

Leading Democrats out of the wilderness

Memo to Dems: Passion & Principles Matter
The Nation

Campaign 2004: To Win, the Democrats Must Reclaim Their Soul and America's Center
Baltimore Indymedia

From's Last Stand
The American Prospect

Someone Better Blow Reveille for the Democratic Leadership
Buzzflash.com

The Democrats' brewing civil war
Salon.com

Is it over for Howard Dean?

emixers Make Howard Dean's Scream Funky And Danceable
BulletinPress.com

Howard Dean's 2004 Iowa Caucus Concession Speech Remixes
DeanGoesNuts.com

Defending Dean's Scream
CBSNews.com

The Phony Dean 'Meltdown'
TomPaine.com

Lessons for the Democratic Party from the Dean Campaign

DEAN AND KUCINICH: On two candidates who are fighting for something more than the nomination
Workingforchange.com

The Populists of New Hampshire
The Nation