The "Pretty Face" gets easy media coverage, again
Saw an article in an area paper referring to Gillibrand's energy policy. It's a completely uncritical puff piece where Gillibrand is quoted as saying she supports light rail, and wants to run it all the way from Lake Placid down to Dutchess County or further south. She doesn't know how much it would cost, and guesstimates it will take 10 years to get it done.
Does she literally mean light rail? Or is it monorail? Or MagLev? We don't know. That is not unveiled on her website. How will it be financed? How much will it cost to ride this thing? Again, we have no answers.
Since I started running in 2003, I have consistently advanced a much more clear proposal for a privately financed monorail running in the I-87 and I-90 corridor. I've got the idea carefully worked out. I sat down and discussed it with a professor at U Albany who specializes in mass transit. No paper has ever mentioned this, except possibly the Metroland.
And that's the difference between an anointed challenger like Gillibrand and the rest of us. The insider gets oodles of free press. Outsiders don't even exist.
How about this -- I actually have a blog and post my thoughts about issues, other candidates, etc. None of the local incumbents have a blog. Insider Gillibrand has no blog (though she has supporters who blog about her). How about some press coverage of the campaign blogs and campaign-related blogs? I seem to be getting along well with two or three of Gillibrand's bloggers, commenting on each others' sites (and I credit them for their politeness - they're better than me).
Isn't that newsworthy?
I love the media's position. They don't like politicians raising money, but they won't cover you unless you raise money. They don't like politicians sniping at each other, and claim they should talk about issues, but they only cover the sniping between insiders and ignore anyone who talks about issues.
Does she literally mean light rail? Or is it monorail? Or MagLev? We don't know. That is not unveiled on her website. How will it be financed? How much will it cost to ride this thing? Again, we have no answers.
Since I started running in 2003, I have consistently advanced a much more clear proposal for a privately financed monorail running in the I-87 and I-90 corridor. I've got the idea carefully worked out. I sat down and discussed it with a professor at U Albany who specializes in mass transit. No paper has ever mentioned this, except possibly the Metroland.
And that's the difference between an anointed challenger like Gillibrand and the rest of us. The insider gets oodles of free press. Outsiders don't even exist.
How about this -- I actually have a blog and post my thoughts about issues, other candidates, etc. None of the local incumbents have a blog. Insider Gillibrand has no blog (though she has supporters who blog about her). How about some press coverage of the campaign blogs and campaign-related blogs? I seem to be getting along well with two or three of Gillibrand's bloggers, commenting on each others' sites (and I credit them for their politeness - they're better than me).
Isn't that newsworthy?
I love the media's position. They don't like politicians raising money, but they won't cover you unless you raise money. They don't like politicians sniping at each other, and claim they should talk about issues, but they only cover the sniping between insiders and ignore anyone who talks about issues.
posted by Albany Lawyer at 12:29 AM
2 Comments:
Hey Candidate,
After being directed to your letter to the editor by Democracy in Albany and then googling your name I came across your site.
A few little comments. Blogs are great, but when you come across one that doesnt have any comments that means that no one cares or worse yet, it looks like no one is reading them.
The least you could do is get a couple of kids to sit down and make comments about what you post and make it look like someone is reading. Maybe get a couple of fights going on. Maybe a little bit of showmanship?
Second, are you actually campaining? My wife is a registered Republican and she hasnt gotten anything from you. (Im a Albany business owner which means I am a democrat). Are you knocking on doors? Kissing babies?
My expereince with campaigns is the more noise that your campaign is creating the more willing the TU is to cover you.
Now as to the tu letter, will you be autographing your product?
Responding to the above comment ...
First, there are a few comments on my blog. Mostly from Gillibrand supporters, and it has created a bit of a dialog. Certainly I don't get as many readers as I would like (though someone at house.gov reads my blog regularly - I wonder who that could be), but we're getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 visitors a week.
The comment about campaigning reflects a popular misconception. It is unwise to campaign door-to-door in a congressional race. There are 425,000 registered voters. If you manage to meet 100 people a day for 500 days (which would be amazing), that would only be 50,000 people. The commenter reflects a widespread anti-challenger bias -- has he or his wife received anything from the incumbent? Has the incumbent knocked on their door? Challengers face much greater criticism. Keep in mind that incumbents get paid a full-time salary and can campaign as much as they want without losing income. Challengers often have real jobs and have to work while campaigning.
His wife hasn't gotten anything from me. To send a postcard to 450,000 registered voters would cost about $100,000. So apparently it's okay to raise money after all.
I'm trying to create noise and get covered not just by the TU, but also by the other newspapers and TV and radio. But there is a strong media bias against challengers. Kirsten Gillibrand has overcome that bias to an extent, but even so Sweeney's gotten 5 times as many articles in the TU as her.
It is a common thing for someone to offer advice to a challenger. Far more rare is the genuine offer of assistance. That's one of many reasons why the incumbent reelection rate is 98%.
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