| Phil Power, disgusted at what political campaigns have become, says we'd be better off going back to the days when party bosses chose candidates in smoke-filled rooms at the back end of convention halls. No, I'm not kidding. That's what he wants. The old bulls who used to inhabit the smoke-filled rooms knew very well the candidates, their weaknesses and strengths. Their power depended on making informed choices between the candidates. It’s been usurped by clever marketing, sound bites and TV ads of the sort we’re experiencing in this year’s election, nearly half a century after the bitter chaos of Chicago. So, he thinks it was better when party bosses and political machines chose candidates, rather than the party rank and file? By the way, keep in mind that he's writing this during a general election and not a party nominating process. Also, keep in mind that the rise of clever marketing, sound bites and TV ads didn't accompany McGovern's reforms in the nominating process, but the rise of television as a medium. It's almost as if he forgot that a little more than a decade before McGovern, a Tee Vee debate helped give us a John Kennedy presidency, or that the clever marketing and TV ads of this year were only made possible by -- wait for it, wait for it -- the flood of campaign cash into politics only made possible by defining the expenditure of a dollar as the exercise of free speech. But, you get his point, which is that sometime in the near future we can expect a column by Very Serious Person Phil Power headlined, "Tammanny Hall's bad rap." |
