Faith and fear

As Bush and Kerry gingerly dance around each other in the polls, analysts are still trying to figure out just what will count in the end.Tim...

As Bush and Kerry gingerly dance around each other in the polls, analysts are still trying to figure out just what will count in the end.

Time squinted at the 8216;8216;wedge issues8217;8217; that have traditionally given presidential candidates the edge8212;abortion, gay marriage, and now, stem cell research8212;and spotted an irony. While the 2004 race will not be determined by these issues, dominated as it is by national security and the economy, it is actually on the former that candidates can make a real difference. A Kerry victory, said Time, could mean that liberalism will begin to rise from its 8216;8216;post-9/11 crouch8217;8217;.

Many have commented on the never-before mix of fear and faith that has dominated Campaign 2004. This week, The New York Times picked on Dick Cheney8217;s statement that Kerry was incapable of understanding, or acting on, the spectre of terrorists creeping into American cities with nuclear bombs, threatening the lives of hundreds. And John Ashcroft8217;s suggestion that God had spared America from an attack since 9/11 because President Bush8217;s team was assisting 8216;8216;the hand of Providence8217;8217;.

A Bush aide dismissed the inquiries of an NYT writer by telling him that he lives in a separate 8216;8216;reality-based community8217;8217;.

The insiders

It8217;s a familiar lament: politics all over the world is becoming more and more of a fuss about less and less. Policy-making no longer makes news, only the electoral horse race does. And the manipulative top-down campaigning goes on, long after the election is won.

So has politics changed? Has the media?

In the latest issue of The New Yorker, David Grann traced how one has transformed the other. He took up the stunning success of 8216;The Note8217; in Washington8217;s political circles. It points to the 8216;8216;new inside culture8217;8217; that dominates the media establishment in Washington, encouraging the political class to treat politics as nothing more substantive than a battle of technique.

The Note is a political news digest that appears on the ABC News website each weekday morning. It collects information, polling data, leaks from unnamed sources, arcane statistics, guest lists, private dirt, summaries of ephemera from news reports etc. The minutiae are of little interest to the ordinary citizen. But they have become the daily must-see for campaign consultants, strategists, pollsters, pundits and journalists who make up the modern-day political establishment that sets the political agenda for the country.

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Grann explained why the power of 8216;8216;inside information8217;8217; has grown. As the established political parties became weaker, candidates turned to television to reach voters. Packaging became more important. The advent of sophisticated public-opinion research made politics even more of a science than an art and candidates began to surround themselves with an array of 8216;8216;expert manipulators8217;8217;: pollsters, advertising executives, media consultants, campaign strategists, direct-mail gurus. Tacticians became as renowned as candidates. Top political reporters of the country became the 8216;8216;inside dopesters8217;8217;. They focused on the goings-on inside the political 8216;8216;war rooms8217;8217;. The process of politics came to be seen as an end in itself.

Grann8217;s analysis was an invitation to step back from the heat of the Bush-Kerry battle and to see how a creeping 8216;8216;24/7-cable-Internet-talk show politico-media culture8217;8217; has transformed both politics and its coverage in America. In India, the future may already be here.