This is something we talk about all the time, but K-thug does a good job of describing just how much the Republican party belongs to Murdoch and Koch:
As Politico recently pointed out, every major contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination who isn’t currently holding office and isn’t named Mitt Romney is now a paid contributor to Fox News. Now, media moguls have often promoted the careers and campaigns of politicians they believe will serve their interests. But directly cutting checks to political favorites takes it to a whole new level of blatancy.
[…..] [T]hese organizations have long provided havens for conservative political figures not currently in office. Thus when Senator Rick Santorum was defeated in 2006, he got a new job as head of the America’s Enemies program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a think tank that has received funding from the usual sources: the Koch brothers, the Coors family, and so on.Now Mr. Santorum is one of those paid Fox contributors contemplating a presidential run. What’s the difference?
[…..]Something else has changed, too: increasingly, Fox News has gone from merely supporting Republican candidates to anointing them. Christine O’Donnell, the upset winner of the G.O.P. Senate primary in Delaware, is often described as the Tea Party candidate, but given the publicity the network gave her, she could equally well be described as the Fox News candidate. Anyway, there’s not much difference: the Tea Party movement owes much of its rise to enthusiastic Fox coverage.
In 2008, McCain ally Mike Murphy famously said of the idea that Fox/Limbaugh could deliver the Republican nomination “these guys couldn’t deliver a pizza”. I don’t think that will be true in 2012. And maybe it doesn’t matter, with nearly all the contenders on the Fox or Koch payroll.
Daddy-O
Amazing…but not surprising.
Not these days, anyway.
dmsilev
How long until the “but the Tea Party isn’t racist, really!” whining begins?
dms
Omnes Omnibus
“Treat me nice,” says the party girl.
Linda Featheringill
I saw the column this morning.
As I see it, we have one of two choices:
1. We can lie down and let the Fatcats have all the fun.
2. We can indulge in political activity anyway.
We have the right to go door-to-door to persuade people to vote for our candidate. We have the right to encourage folks to vote. We have the right to vote. We have the right to make speeches. We have the right to listen to speeches. We have the right to cheer when our president speaks. We have the right to weep with joy when he talks about doing the right thing whether it gets him reelected or not. We have the right.
Even if we lose elections, we have the right to particpate in them.
FTFC! [fuck the fat cats] Let’s rumble!
Come on in. It’s fun.
aimai
Yes, what Fox’s candidates lack in quality they make up in quantity. The Democrats always make the mistake of backing what they think of as “good” or “unique” candidates. Essentially a retail strategy. Fox is going for a wholesale strategy: large portions of crummy food beats out small portions of high quality food every time.
aimai
Chyron HR
A place where his talents would be of maximum use, I’m sure.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
OT: Doug, did you see post on TPM where Larry Kudlow said that Obama’s hugging Rahm made him look weak? “Why not just a dignified, stand-up, serious handshake? That’s what Reagan would have done.”
Kudlow’s Reagan would never have apologized (whether or not the real one would have).
Bullsmith
It’ll be the bestest government money can buy.
General Stuck
I read that article early this morning and thought it was superb in connecting the dots of big money plus Fox News plus the stable of bought and paid for wingnuts. I guess Romney’s magic underwear keeps him off the dole, but he still is just as wingnutty as the rest. An independent wingnut, now there is a scary animal.
WereBear
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Reagan would do what the script called for. That’s what he always did. Another trumped up outrage!
Bobbo
I always thought it was the GLEAMING corridor of the 51st floor but whatever.
EdTheRed
Elevator, gooooing up!
Ross Hershberger
It’s pretty surprising to see Krugman going for this material. He’s usually all graphs & economics theory. But this matters and I’m glad that someone with Nobel and a NYT column is covering it.
Comrade Javamanphil
But FNC is Jake Tapper’s brother in journalistic arms so it’s all cool. Nothing to see here. Next up, the Hip Hop President hugged a guy! Is he the blackest or gayest president ever…or both? We’ll report, you decide.
Zifnab
@aimai: I think it’s more of a boutique versus vanilla strategy. FOX News is pumping out clones of Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, on the assumption that these are what sell and everyone will gobble them up. (God willing, they are absolutely wrong on that one).
Democrats are running candidates that appeal in different states to respectively different constituencies. So the difference between Al Franken and Jim Webb is the difference between Minnesota and Virgina.
The problem with the Democratic Party is that it continues to cling to failed incumbents – Blanche Lincoln or Joe Lieberman for instance – when we’re going through a “throw the bums out” era of politics.
beltane
I applaud the Clash reference.
General Stuck
The problem wingnuts have, though mitigated by a compliant press and tendencies of the white tribal majority mentality, is that they have to govern after getting themselves elected. It’s the Lincoln thing about fooling some of the peeps some of the time, but harder to do it all the time. There is something like a bottom to the American voters apathy and stupidity and willingness to swallow lies and distortions, and is usually reached when gas goes to 4 bucks a gallon, and they have to use a magnifying glass to find their bank account, if they even have one from losing their job. Not to mention mythical casus beli(s) costing a cool trillion and 4000 + dead US soldiers. It is the GOP big handicap, and our big misfortune.
SpotWeld
When did Max Headroom stop being fictional?
Dave
I just don’t see how Rush/FOX can sell a candidate to non-party members. Fox can push O’Donnell all they want. Rush can cow Karl Rove into apologizing for questioning her as a viable candidate. And heaven knows they can bludgeon any competition in a closed primary system. But in an open election, these whackjobs have to appeal to moderates and they simply don’t do that.
This strategy gets worse the larger a campaign becomes. For a Representative, this allows for radical candidates in gerrymandered districts. And in a Senate race in a red state, this may work as well. But all that does is lock the GOP in place. These psychos will never appeal to the whole electorate in a moderate state. I am eagerly anticipating Snowe getting primaried for 2012 in Maine because if the teabagger wins that seat becomes a Democratic lock.
Jager
A bit off topic but did anyone see the pictures of O’keefe’s
“yacht”? The floating pleasure palace was a beat to hell 25-27 foot late 70’s-early 80’s outboard powered sailboat, without an engine on the bracket! By the time he loaded all his sex toys on board there wouldn’t be room enough to get a woman on board!
Bubblegum Tate
So here’s the question I would like to see get put to teabaggers, especially in light of just how much the teabagger candidates are owned by corporate masters:
Let’s say your wildest dreams come true and every single teabagger candidate wins. A clean sweep! You now have a couple Senators, some Reps, and I believe a few Governors. So then what happens? What do you think they will accomplish?
Will they be able to repeal the hated “Obamacare?” Will they eliminate all that damn dirty government spending?
Will they find that actually getting this stuff done is much harder than it looks? And if so, how much patience do you think the notoriously impatient American public will have with them?
How many of them will simply become the exact kind of garden-variety Republican that you teabagged in the primaries?
stuckinred
Oh Boy, this will be fun
David Brooks (not that one)
K-Thug omitted to mention that the Fox political donations were intended to be secret, which undermines his thesis more than a little. I just hope he intended to include it, and find a way to make the factbolster his point, but (as he is always banging on about) was pushed for wordage count.
FlipYrWhig
@Dave:
Not if you make the moderates too depressed and frustrated to feel much like voting.
General Stuck
@Dave:
Just a recent example of these unqualified nuts with foot and mouth disease is the recorded Sharon Angle talk with the apparent “official” tea party candidate trying to talk him into dropping out. That exposes her for the gutter person she is. I think Harry Reid is going to win that race and the GOP again will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The tea party is a southern animal, and that is the only ocean it can survive in. Reid and dems are giddy at their good fortune delivered by getting insane opponents this go around that at least will save the Senate from the wingers.
Zifnab
@Dave:
That’s where the massive amounts of corporate cash come in. You can run wall-to-wall ads and Swift Boat campaigns against viable alternatives.
I mean, take a look at what Clear Channel has accomplished. Radio news, outside NPR, is completely and utterly dead. Sure, you can avoid listening to Rush or Hannity or Beck. But where do you tune in for actual information? The airwaves offer no other alternatives.
In open elections, the wackjobs put on a friendly face or simply get their names on the ballot and refuse to campaign outside their wingnut enclaves. You can see it down here in the Texas Governor’s race. Rick Perry absolutely refuses to engage with anyone he hasn’t pre-screened. He doesn’t show up for debates. He doesn’t do local news interviews. He remains as off-the-radar as physically possible. Voters are left to choose between Democrat and Not-Democrat. No one recognizes what Perry actually stands for, even if many of his policies are intensely unpopular.
Brachiator
Now we have Murdoch and Fox News on the brink of providing the GOP presidential nominee.
The sad thing is that this is fine with many conservatives and even the Tea Party crowd, who supposedly are against big government, but who have no problem playing the puppet and having their strings pulled by Big Business.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Did he really say that?
Omnes Omnibus
@David Brooks (not that one): I might be missing something here, but how does the fact that the political donation were intended to be secret undermine Krugman’s point?
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Bobbo:
I googled it…you’re right.
Death Panel Truck
It’s “gleaming corridors.”
Paris
Al Franken was paid by AirAmerica which is funded by Soros and you weren’t complaining then, hypocrite. (/snark)
Bill H
There was a time when all newspapers were openly and unabashedly partisan. I remember when our town, and it was not a particularly large city, had two newspapers. One was notoriously liberal, the other conservative. Virtually everyone in town subscribed to and read both papers. That was a system which was seriously informative.
It was also why the law prevented one company from monopolizing the media.
Now, large companies monopolize the media, major cities have one newspaper per city, and so the media is required to be “neutral,” which it accomplishes mostly by being essentialy content-free. It presents trivia and nonsense such as who may have employed an undocumented worker, and goes to such lengths to present “both sides” of everything that it dare not make reference to a global Earth without giving the Flat Earth Society a chance to present its views.
The result is a society almost totally uninformed about its government and what its government is actually doing on a day-to-day basis.
Instead of fulminating about Fox News and its partisan nature, how about advocating for greater diversity of ownership of the media, and creation of a media environment where all views are presented instead of a mass media where no views are presented.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill H: Your post lead me to this OT thought. Is it possible that many on the right do not accept the reality of global warming because they do not accept the concept of a global, as opposed to flat, world? If so, how does Tom Friedman fit into all of this?
Uloborus
@General Stuck:
Even in the South they’ve got problems. Paul is running neck-and-neck with Conway still. In Kentucky. And Paul is honestly the best Tea Party candidate they have. Conway roasted him over an open fire in the debate, but Paul didn’t actually sound insane.
Instead Conway kept pointing out all the insane things Paul has said.
Daddy-O
@Bubblegum Tate: I don’t mean to admonish or scold, but if every Teabagger won their general election and failed to deliver on a single insane promise, the Teabagger reaction would be nil.
Because it isn’t about what happens here in reality. It’s about what happens in their minds. And in their minds, winning an election is akin to winning the World Series or the Super Bowl. Just an excuse to jump and shout, and go back to the daily kvetching that is their lives.
They will vote however they’re told to vote, no matter what their record of success or failure.
trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus:
Global warming will be “real” when the Chinese believe it is.
/mustache of understanding.
David Brooks (not that one)
@Omnes Omnibus: Part of his point is that they have given up all pretence, and are being blatant and shameless about the money connection, and can get away with it. Well, they were at least trying to be not quite so blatant.
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan: That’s not what my friend Ankit in Bangalore says.
David Brooks (not that one)
@Bubblegum Tate: Rand Paul Rand has already turned into a garden-variety appartchik.
rickstersherpa
For a great analysis of the our current media nightmare, I recommend the following, even though it probably puts some of liberal heroes in a not so good light (Maddow and Olbermann).
http://nymag.com/print/?/news/media/68717/
It is a reminder that all these guys are piling around, no matter the particular narrative or meme the perpetuate, in the Hamptons with the investment bankers, traders, private equity and hedge fund managers.
I do find the fact that some of these guys at Fox look down on Beck and his particular money making schtick and drunk the kool-aid as regart to their own.
Omnes Omnibus
@David Brooks (not that one): I see. I would say that they did not care enough to worry about it.
Montysano
Via Sully, the GOP candidate for governor of Oklahoma takes the Palin method and kicks it up a notch: she will, of course, only give scripted interviews, but she also refuses to begin a speech until all who are not Of The Tribe are purged from the room.
All of this makes for great teevee, but as an electoral strategy, it’s a dead end.
Tecumseh
One would imagine that you’d see a lot of outrage and protests by the Mainstream Media seeing as all of this crosses the idea of a neutral media and goes against the very idea of a press but…..
Any chance Howie Kurtz writes a long article about how this could all lead to the death of a functional democracy?
Brachiator
@Daddy-O:
If Teabaggers get into Congress, they will form a reliable, permanent obstruction to the Obama Administration. They don’t have to be for anything, they just have to opposed any Democratic plan. Some of them are too stupid or too blinded by ideology to see any reason to ever compromise. Their presence reduces the number of Republicans who might ever be persuaded to vote for a Democratic proposal.
Looking ahead to 2012, the Teabaggers will make a big deal in crapping on any Republican who does not satisfy their purity test. These people will be targeted for challenge in the next electoral go-round.
bobbob
If Palin is not the GOP nominee in 2012 do you really think Fox News would want Obama to lose the election? After all Obama’s administration has been a ratings bonanza for them. If it is all about ratings why kill the cash cow?
Dee Loralei
Doug,
I just finished re-watching Max Headroom. You really must see it, I imagine you were too young when it came out originally.
It’s another work of fiction that the right-wing has taken as a tutorial and how- to guide.
It’s also compelling and amusing tv. And not nearly as dated as so much produced in the 80’s is.
Adam Lang
Wow… so they’re admitting it openly now?
Warren Terra
Another development is Fox News suing the Robin Carnahan campaign for copyright infringement and defamation – for using a piece of a Chris Wallace interview of her opponent Roy Blunt in a campaign ad, which is a way for the network to back one side that I’ve never heard of happening before. The defamation part of the suit is especially interesting – how dare the Carnahan campaign suggest Fox News is ever critical of a Republican?