NATIONAL JOURNAL - TALKING HEADS
Dowd And Out
By Vaughn Ververs
NationalJournal.com
Friday, Nov. 12, 2004
With a stinging, slashing style, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has carved out a niche as one of the nation's preeminent commentators during the past decade. Her must-read rants on Bill Clinton's personal foibles and President Bush's crusades have put her alongside the greats in the pantheon of American political and social observers. But all good things must end.
Her above-the-fray approach seemed refreshing and principled until she broke character and started showing up to discuss the presidential election -- and her recent book.
It's not just the clockwork predictability of her columns (gee, another one about Bush's messianic drive, what a surprise). It's not just Dowd's increasingly caustic and screeching tone (Bush adviser Karl Rove hatching "schemes to marshal the forces of darkness to take over the country"?). It's more than those things that threaten to drag her back into the realm of us mere mortals -- it's her sudden move from the back pages of the Times to the bright lights of TV punditry.
For years, Dowd was able to maintain a air of mystery because she was one of the very few political commentators who refused to ply her trade on television like the riffraff. Her above-the-fray approach seemed refreshing and principled until she broke character and started showing up to discuss the presidential election -- and her recent book. It was then we realized the bigger reason for her reclusiveness.
Don Imus, whose show has hosted Dowd on many occasions (mostly by phone) has warned Dowd to stay off the airwaves. His reasoning is, as we understand it, that she is too good, too elevated to sink to the level of the Dick Morrises of the world. She should have stuck to the advice of her friend, because the fact is that she's distracting at best and a disaster at worst.
Television thrives on looks, and Dowd has those. She has almost reached paparazzi level with her flaming red hair and fashion flair. Let's face it, newspaper columnists are more likely to resemble Jack Germond. But looks just aren't enough in this case: What's needed is a makeover the Fab Five would be hard-pressed to complete.
Dowd's appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" alongside her Times colleague William Safire was a contrast in style. Where Dowd was whiny and harsh, Safire was calm and gracious. Asked if she really believes (as she wrote) that the GOP is engaged in a jihad, Dowd replied: "Yeah, I think that if you look at the quotes from evangelicals today they're talking about how we're on the eve of destruction and God gave us a reprieve.... I think the evangelicals think they're in a holy war now." Safire showed the grace to make his points without being so strident, even complimenting Dowd for her "fierceness." He even complimented John Kerry's strategist Bob Shrum, calling him a "super-duper speechwriter."
Did Dowd have anything nice to say about the Bush side? Here's what she said about national security adviser Condoleezza Rice: "Condi Rice, you know, never did her job as national security adviser. She was Bush's workout partner and foreign policy governess, and now, they're talking about putting her in charge of defense. So a lot of people who didn't do their jobs are going to get better jobs." Add to that her seeming inability to look into a camera and her obvious unease, and it's easy to see why she stayed away from the small screen for so long.
There's no doubt that Dowd's words, written in the world's most important newspaper, have had a tremendous impact on the political culture in Washington. And where Republicans once loved to read her deconstructions of Clinton, they now rail against her Bush-bashing. That's probably a point in her favor -- another being her unwillingness to back down. (She challenged Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., to a duel just this week).
But without a new target in the White House (and how many more Bush-on-the-couch columns can there be), where will she take her act for the next four years? One thing is for sure. It won't -- or shouldn't -- be on television.
We Asked, We Answer
In our post-election column, we described our disgust at the way network exit polls continue to be misused and warned that those organizations need to get a handle on them for future elections. At the time, our sleep-deprived minds were unable to focus on just how they should do that. But with the help of a little rest, we have a suggestion: Don't share them with anyone.
The exit polls are valuable tools, used to better understand the dynamics and attitudes that drive voting behavior. By using some of that data on Election Night, networks are able to provide at least initial explanations about which candidate received votes from which demographic group or which carried the day on important issues. More importantly, the data is essential in studying the election after the dust has settled.
In no way is the straight ballot question valuable to any understanding of the election. Those numbers can only cause trouble, leaking from person to person until they find there way to the Internet for all to see. For those who don't believe that the horse race numbers don't influence the early election day, coverage consider this: At one point CNN's Wolf Blitzer had to calm down an excited Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., by telling him Kerry hadn't won the election "yet" after early exit polls pointed to a landslide for the Democrat.
Those numbers are still causing problems. Had Bush lost, Republicans could have pointed to them as deterrents, causing GOP voters to give up and not vote for a lost cause. As it is, liberal bloggers and activists now claim that the exit poll numbers were not wrong, but that it was the actual vote count that was flawed -- or fixed.
So here's our suggestion for the next election: Share all the demographic and issue breakdowns. Go crazy telling people that 49 percent of NASCAR dads who think that gay marriage should be allowed voted for Candidate X. But keep those horse-race numbers out of the hands of all but a handful of National Election Pool officials. Do not share them with news anchors, reporters, producers or anyone else. We've now seen two presidential elections in row in which exit polls have become a post-election issue. Don't tempt fate on unlucky No. 3.
Vaughn Ververs is editor of The Hotline, the National Journal Group's daily briefing on politics. His e-mail address is vververs@nationaljournal.com. |
