Sir, Your Premise Is Flawed, and Your Pantaloons Are Off-Center

I would like to point out that three seconds after I wrote the title for this post, I found my cell phone, which I had been searching for the past half-hour. If you are really good at deductive logic, you may be able to figure out where it was with one hint: I do something when I am about to write for a while.

The Washington Post Outlook printed an essay by someone who argues that the media and public perception of Rudy Giuliani as a liberal is wrong.

My perception of Giuliani is that his name is very difficult to spell by memory. Sounding it out doesn't help either. Gee-you-lan-ee--at least one of the "i"s in his name is excessive. I'm not voting for any candidate whose name isn't spelled like it sounds. Mike Huckabee--now there is a man I can get behind. There was even a movie made about him, I Heart Huckabees. It was made by Hollywood (evil!), but I have a forgiving heart for Huckabee-named movies.

If you think I am being superficial, name the last President we elected with a slightly odd name. Heck, name the last candidate nominated for President with a slightly odd name.

Back to the article in question. I haven't spent much attention on either primary race, but I disagree with the author's basic premise: "Somehow, though, Giuliani is being introduced to the rest of America as a liberal."

Really? I haven't heard anyone besides the far-right label him as a liberal. The author himself can't even find an example of someone in the media or mainstream calling him that. He quotes a few pundits saying that he has "liberal positions on social issues" and equates that with being a liberal, but they're two different things.

This logical jump undersells his whole argument. He's trying to disprove something--the mainstream thinks Giuliani is a liberal--that isn't true in the first place.

Do you like all of these paragraph breaks? Pancake City cares about readability and short attention spans.

It's too bad the author isn't more honest with his premise, because there are interesting points to be made about the ties between perception and politics. I'm guessing that most people who know little about Giuliani will assume he's a moderate almost solely because he was a Republican elected in New York city.

Likewise, people would assume a Democratic governor elected in Kansas would be a moderate. These assumptions are often true and powerful because of that.

What's interesting to me is the lag between these perceptions and reality. Every primary candidate shifts away from the center to attract partisan voters who play a greater role in primaries than the general election. It takes time for media pundits to update their often simplified story of a candidate, if they ever catch on at all.

That's a more interesting topic in my eyes. What is the connection between reality--what a candidate says and how voters perceive him or her--and the media's reporting of that reality, which often seems strongly filtered by long-ago made assumptions that are difficult to change?

For example, the current narrative is that Hillary Clinton is unstoppable and has the Democratic nation locked up. Polls give her a sizable lead. I've seen stories, maybe noticed because of my own filter, on how Obama's donors are worried. Political future markets are selling Hillary shares at 70 for the Democratic nomination (essentially saying she has a 70% of winning the Democratic nomination).

How much of this is based on reality--Obama and Edwards not connecting with primary voters--and how much of this is a self-feeding narrative, similar to the convention wisdom on Howard Dean four years ago? How much are undecided voters influences by these narratives? It seems backwards that such a strong narrative can be accepted and repeated without a single vote cast.

Edit: I just remembered another narrative that I'm not sure how it got started and took hold: Clinton is experienced / Obama is inexperienced. You know the last elected office Clinton held before being elected Senator on New York? None.

My guess is that experience is being used as a synonym for familiarity. As first-lady for eight years, she has had more time in the public eye than anyone running right now. She is also strongly associated with someone with a lot of experience, former President Clinton, and the connotation people have of the former President may be spilling over to her.

The closest person to Clinton in length of public exposure? Giuliani, who guess what, is also the front-runner for his party. Hmm. Maybe there is a connection.