The vetting process for selecting a presidential running mate in the United
States is usually a calculated and exhaustive effort. There are criminal
background checks, tax returns to peruse. Neighbours, friends, party
loyalists are consulted, and even enemies are felt out. There's a lot of "on-the-ground
time", as they say, to make sure the person chosen for the ticket is as
squeaky clean as they appear.
And yet there are frequent questionable calls. Sometimes the consequences of
those dud selections are delayed, such as George H.W. Bush's decision in
1988 to select the rather dim Indiana Senator, Dan Quayle, who later became
a national joke when he misspelt "potato" at an elementary school
spelling bee a few months before the 1992 election. Other bad choices are
far more damaging right from the start, as was the case in 1972 when the
Democrat's George McGovern selected Thomas Eagleton, a Missouri Senator. Mr
Eagleton, it was revealed shortly after his selection, had checked himself
into a hospital for shock treatment years earlier. Speculation that he had a
drinking problem followed. He quit the ticket in August of that year, a few
weeks after his selection, all but sinking the Democrats' chances against
the highly unpopular incumbent Richard Nixon.
Back then, dirty little secrets, character flaws and embarrassing spelling
shortcomings were much easier to hide. There was no army of political
bloggers analysing every campaign pledge and biographical detail. Back then,
small-town political enemies, ex-girlfriends and agitated neighbours
couldn't air dirty laundry on a blog, or post intriguing videos and photos
of the candidates on a MySpace page for the world to see.
"If you think about the McGovern-Eagleton shock treatment revelations, a
story like that would probably break into the public in a matter of hours
today with bloggers on the case," says Greg Mitchell, a veteran
journalist in New York who's been covering national political campaigns
since the 1968
Democratic Convention in Chicago.
"You have to respect their sleuthing skills and their desire, both on the
right and on the left," continues Mitchell, who today is editor of
Editor & Publisher, a publication that has been examining the news
industry for more than 100 years. Not surprisingly, Mitchell spends a lot of
time these days on how bloggers influence mainstream media, and vice versa.
The political coverage by bloggers has been unrelenting this campaign season.
Naturally, it's been highly partisan too. There have been a lot of hits and
even more misses in the coverage, but this people-powered spotlight has
succeeded in keeping both John McCain and Barack Obama a bit more attentive
about what they promise and which big decisions they make. If they stray
even a little, the candidates run the risk that a misstatement, any waffling
or any questionable decision will quickly turn into a blog-fuelled
conflagration. There’s a lot at stake. Since the much-referenced incident in
2004 of a blogger
discrediting a Dan Rather report that questioning President Bush's
military service, it was thought that bloggers' biggest contribution to the
election coverage was to keep candidates and the mainstream media honest.
This election cycle, you can add another job description to the
bloggers-in-chief: it is now their duty to vet vice presidential candidates.
Mr McCain's surprise decision to select the relatively unknown Alaska governor
Sarah Palin last week as his running mate did just that. While high-paid
Republican operatives and spin-doctors took to the TV airwaves to portray
the governor of America’s 48th-most populous state as a fiscal reformer and
pro-life role model appealing to the family values wing of the Republican
Party, left-leaning bloggers instead took aim at Mrs Palin’s family. In
particular, they went after her children, asking a question the mainstream
media wouldn’t dare touch: could the youngest child – five-month old Trig –
actually be the child of not the VP candidate, but instead the firstborn of
her 17-year-old daughter Bristol?
In the end, the bloggers, namely, the liberal blogger community Dailykos, were
wrong with their journalistic instincts. Dead wrong. But their digging
forced the McCain group to fashion a response and come clean. Yes, baby Trig
is Sarah Palin’s child. But yes, Bristol too is pregnant.
History will give the bloggers a pass for completely botching theory one – the
baby cover-up conspiracy. But it cannot be disputed that the bloggers’
digging forced the McCain camp into one of the most awkward revelations yet
of the campaign – at least timing-wise, on the first day of the convention.
Even if they knew about the pregnancy, they were forced to make it public
because of the public clamour that grew well beyond their control. Yes, it’s
scurrilous stuff that’s probably going to blow over by November 4, but it
does raise a question about how thoroughly Mrs Palin was vetted, and how
well the McCain team can keep the next bombshell contained before the next
band of blogger muckrakers catch a whiff. After all, what the bloggers were
tapping into with the Bristol Palin story was already public information. It
was of the hottest discussions in Alaskan politics – is there any truth to
the rumour that daughter Bristol is pregnant? It’s the kind of chatter you’d
no doubt hear if you were on the streets of Juneau, the capital city, or
Anchorage, the biggest city in the state, if you were asking around. And,
it’s the kind of chatter that in this MySpace/YouTube/Twitter/Blogger era a
person in Washington DC can track down fairly easily.
The stakes are always highest in a presidential campaign and thus the blogging
community is bound to be more aggressive than usual this year. Their
publish-first-ask-questions-later style will continue to result in bogus
news items. But that doesn’t mean a major political party can afford to
ignore them, or their potential. As we’ve learned this past week, the
bloggers weren’t properly considered when Mrs Palin’s name was put forward.
For a blogger, says Mitchell, this apparent gap in the vetting process by the
McCain team proved to be an opportunity no blogger could pass up. The chance
of breaking a big juicy scoop on an open-season candidate could do wonders
for a marginal blogger’s recognition. Such a scoop, Mitchell says, “could be
a potential gold mine for a blogger.
“So far it’s been standing operating procedure,” he continues, “but when you
get into stories about fake babies? Now that’s getting a little far out
there.”
Depending on your political persuasion, the good news is there are still two
whole months left in the campaign season. Who knows what the bloggers will
next unearth.
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Bernhard Warner, a freelance
journalist and media consultant, writes about technology, the internet and
media industries. He can be reached at techscribe@gmail.com
