{"id":555,"date":"2004-10-10T18:56:21","date_gmt":"2004-10-10T18:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:08:49","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:08:49","slug":"the_cocoon_down_under","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=555","title":{"rendered":"The Cocoon Down Under"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve written about the media ‘cocoon’ before. It’s Mickey Kaus’ creation<\/a>, and I think he nails it with this formulation.<\/p>\n

…the pro-Democratic wishful-thinking approach that caused so many Southland readers to be bracingly surprised at the result of the recent California recall election. … The point isn’t that there are no voters who have soured on Bush, or that souring on Bush isn’t a real phenomenon. The point is that reporters and editors at papers like the Times (either one!) are exquisitely sensitive to any sign that Democrats might win, but don’t cultivate equivalent sensitivity when it comes to discerning signs Republicans might win. (Who wants to read that?) The result, in recent years, is the Liberal Cocoon, in which Democratic partisans are kept happy and hopeful until they are slaughtered every other November.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I believe that the media monoculture – which a journalist acquaintance described as “establishment first, then<\/b> liberal” – is to all appearances shilling wildly for a Kerry victory and the Democratic Party. That tilt is, sadly, one of the major barriers to the success of the Democratic Party.Last week, the party line on the Australian elections was that the (relatively conservative) Liberal party might barely hold on to the Prime Minister’s seat while losing seats in the Parlaiment. See this prediction<\/a> from the ABC’s (Australian Broadcasting Company’s) pollster:<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mr John Howard will lose seats, win the election narrowly and announce his retirement at the first sign of economic downturn.<\/p>\n

Opposition leader Mr Mark Latham will rise in popularity and lead Labor to victory in three years.<\/p>\n

Those are the predictions of ABC election analyst Mr Antony Green, who gave his only public speech yesterday ahead of the October 9 federal poll.<\/p>\n

“My prediction would be that the Government will get back with a loss of a couple of seats,” Mr Green told a lunch held by industry group Australian Business Economists.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In fact, here’s what happened<\/a>:<\/p>\n

As Howard went to church Sunday in Sydney, counters resumed tallying votes for the 150-seat lower house of Parliament that gave his Liberal Party 71 seats, up from 68, the government’s junior coalition partner the Nationals 12, down from 13, the opposition Labor Party 56, down from 65 and four seats to minor parties.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many on the right here in the U.S. see this as a good omen for Bush’s re-election chances, and I am somewhat in agreement.<\/p>\n

I am more certain that Kerry and the Democratic Party would be better served by a media that gives them (and us) a clearer view of what is really going on.<\/p>\n

One reason I believe that Bush is going to win (not the same as stating that I want him to – or not) is that the ‘feel’ of the media coverage of this election reads much like the pro-establishment coverage of the recall election here in California. It was going to be a close victory for Gov. Davis. <\/p>\n

It wasn’t.<\/p>\n

The results were 55% – 45%.<\/p>\n

Let’s keep those numbers in mind, come November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What can we learn from the Australian election – particularly the gap between the media-expected results and what really happened?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}