ABC's Rick Klein Gives "Helpful" Advice to Republicans

Rick Klein - Boy King of all things
Political at ABC News

Ditch the Tea Party Candidates

Yahoo News' gleeful analysis of two East Coast state governor's races draws the conclusion that Republicans ought to reject the Tea Party conservative wing for candidates that are just slightly right of center - a formula for disaster virtually everywhere else in the country except the East Coast. Author Rick Klein cites Chris Christie's success in New Jersey and Tea Party supported conservative Ken Cuccinelli apparently losing campaign in Virginia as THE examples of what's wrong with the Republican Party.

Before the GOP starts taking advice from Klein, the brother of openly leftist Huffpo columnist Ezra Klein and would-be guru of all things political, as the new political director at ABC, they might want to consider the source of all this helpful advice and the premise behind it.

New Jersey as Klein's article points out is "Deep Blue" and Virginia, while ostensibly a Southern State, is virtually a parish of Washington DC so far as the number of Northern Virginians working in the capital goes. So many DC workers depend on Democrats for their continued and growing employment opportunities these days that the modern Army of Northern Virginia while still distinctly pro-Democrat, supports a very different party from the one that poor white Southerners fought for in the name of "States Rights". The Democrat party's pro-union and anti-states rights policies are the polar opposite of what Bobby Lee's descendents once claimed to have fought for, although very much pro-rich plantation owner if you judge by the number's of so-called 1 percenters that contribute heavily to Democrats.

Rick Klein's "strategy" to help the Republicans win elections might work in a heavily Yankee state like Jersey or the new Virginia, though I suspect that what the Yankees like most about Christie is his saucy, kick-ass rhetoric rather than his Republican-ness.  However, Klein's advice to kick the Tea Party conservatives to the curb would pretty much finish dividing the party and secure a Democrat majority ad nauseum anywhere west of the Alleghenies or East of the Sierras - which is likely just what Mr. Klein hopes for.

Klein, trained in the best leftist journalism schools, buys the mistaken premise that one captures the moderate "swing vote" best by running a moderate candidate, despite the fact that the moderate lost to the leftist in both of the last two elections. The only big wins for Republicans in the past 40 years have been when they've run a hard nosed conservative for president and similarly conservative candidates in most of the heartland.

What Klein neglects to mention in his "advice" is, that if the Republicans run a bunch of Chris Christies next go round, the Tea party will exit stage right and take their votes with them to a third party, or worse, to nowhere at all. Given the leftist tone over at the Libertarian Party, it's not likely they'll go there, so a fourth party (if you count the Libertarians as a party) becomes an even more likely possibility, leaving the plurality of votes solidly in the hands of the Democrats and likely to remain there.


How much more entertaining would it be for an ABC political director to have three or four political parties upon which to opine?


© 2013 by Tom King

Are Bloggers Journalists?

(c) 2012 by Tom King


(c) Some rights reserved by Andrew Currie

You know, I kind of resent that question.  I'm kind of tired of journalist trying to get themselves up in white robes and to masquerade as some sorts of informational holy men.

The idea that journalists are unbiased news priests, delivering information without opinion is absolute balderdash. If you are a person you have an opinion. Merriam-Webster says a journalist is a "person engaged in journalism, especially a writer or editor for a news medium. Webster also says "a writer who aims at a mass audience" is a journalist.

By that second definition, bloggers are definitely journalists. Surely, Americans with our long history of freedom of the press, are sophisticated enough to realize that every journalist out there is pitching the news according to his own conscience, editing information to tell a story he or she wants to tell. That's Journalism 101. Sure they tell you to be unbiased and then propagandize you shamelessly, usually with leftist opinions, though there are a few conservative and moderate journalism professors out there who have managed to keep their jobs, if not to actually gain tenure.

The fiction that all true journalists are unbiased is just that - fiction! A journalist is a writer of news - that is all. Even if you choose to be "fair and balanced", choose to show an even-handed look at the news as best you can, all that means is that you believe in making news as moderate or independent as you can. It is still your opinion that this is the best way to present the news.

Even journalism icon, Walter Cronkite was obviously and unapologetically progressive in his leanings, though he did his best to appear neutral when he was sitting in the anchor's chair at CBS news. Everybody knew what Uncle Walter thought by how he selected the news clips he presented. It was as much what he didn't say as what he did say. He was brilliant and while I disagreed with him on many fundamental issues, you had to respect the guy's integrity.  He never took his talking points from the DNC or the RNC. No political icon was immune if Uncle Walter thought said politico was doing wrong as poor old LBJ found out to his utter dismay. Cronkite's opinion was always his own.

The belief that you should present an unbiased opinion differs not a whit in moral superiority from Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews who believe news should be interpreted from a liberal/progressive viewpoint or from Sean Hannity or John Stossel, who believe that a conservative interpretation is the correct way to spin it. Whether the journalist is a liberal, conservative or so-called "unbiased" moderate; whether he or she is a reporter, editor, blogger or a TV news anchor, what you receive from these folk, never forget, is information molded by an opinionated journalist to suit his personal value system or that of the folk that write his or her paycheck. Given that....

Opinion is damned well too journalism!

And bloggers are damned well too journalists!

Beyond that, it's just a matter of quality.

Just one blogger's opinion....

Tom King

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