- Dennis Kucinich cannot get a break from big media.
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- The co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus
is running a vigorous, intellectually adventurous, policy-based campaign
for the Democratic presidential nomination. He is leaping on issues before
the other candidates recognize them, bringing broader perspectives to the
debates and building a base of supporters nationwide that could play a
significant role in debates about the direction of the Democratic Party.
Yet, the political punditocracy steadfastly refuses to treat his candidacy
with even a measure of the seriousness that is accorded the other members
of the House and Senate who are seeking the party's nod.
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- But isn't Kucinich, who trails in the polls, simply getting
the coverage he deserves? While it is fair to say that Kucinich falls short
of front-runner status, the griping by his supporters about media bias
against his candidacy has a ring of legitimacy, says John Green, director
of the University of Akron's Ray C. Bliss Institute.
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- "It's a legitimate complaint," Green, a veteran
observer of the media's impact on political races, told the Akron Beacon-Journal
recently. "The media, particularly television, cover elections like
horse races," he added, noting that in this horse race television
reporters frequently dismiss Kucinich as the "fringe candidate"
or the "long-shot candidate."
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- The absurdity, and the irresponsibility, of most media's
approach to Kucinich's candidacy has been particularly evident in recent
weeks.
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- Typically, Kucinich was ahead of the curve on an important
issue. In November, he seized on concerns about the reliability of electronic
voting machines produced by Diebold Inc., one of the nation's largest voting
equipment manufacturers. Those concerns were stirred by the revelation
that Diebold employees had expressed concerns in e-mails about the security
of machines produced by the company.
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- Diebold sought to shut down any debate about its machines
by threatening legal actions against operators of Web sites that were publishing
or linking to corporate documents that detailed flaws in Diebold equipment
and irregularities in the certifying of the company's systems for elections.
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- When he learned of the legal threats, Kucinich took on
the politically potent corporation. The Ohio congressman asked House Judiciary
Committee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Menomonee Falls, and the ranking
Democrat on that committee, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, to investigate
whether the company's actions were potential abuses of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act. He also posted the controversial documents on his congressional
Web site.
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- Diebold quickly backed down. And Kucinich used the development
to declare, "In a democracy where half the people don't vote and where
the last presidential election was decided by the Supreme Court, we cannot
tolerate flawed voting equipment or intimidation of those who point out
the flaws. Diebold backing down from its intimidation campaign is a positive
step. An open and honest examination of the flaws in electronic voting
will lead us to only one possible conclusion: electronic voting machines
are dangerous to democracy because there is no way of ensuring their accuracy.
We have to have a voter-verified paper trail for every election so that
any errors and irregularities caused by the voting machines can be recovered."
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- All in all, this makes for a meaty story. A presidential
candidate takes on a major corporation and wins in a fight over an issue
that is fundamental to the functioning of our democracy.
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- So were there headlines about Kucinich's fight with Diebold?
No. Television news reports? No. Lengthy discussions on public radio or
commercial talk radio? No.
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- Indeed, the only story on Kucinich that got extensive
coverage last week dealt with the fact that, after Kucinich mentioned in
an early November forum that he was a bachelor, more than 80 women contacted
a New Hampshire Web site indicating that they wanted to date him.
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- Kucinich has been a good sport about the whole dating
story. And, certainly, there is nothing wrong with major media doing a
feature story on this quirky twist of the campaign trail. But there is
something very wrong with a scenario in which this is the big story about
Kucinich, while the story of his fight against Diebold barely gets notice.
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- - John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times.
E-mail: jnichols@madison.com
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- Copyright 2003 The Capital Times
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- http://www.madison.com/captimes/opinion/column/nichols/62912.php
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