Mandates and Media Posted on Wednesday, November 10, 2004 One of the interesting things in politics is to watch the dance among the victorious party, the losing party, and the press as to what kind of mandate an election grants. It is my sense that this is one area where the mainstream media retains inordinate influence. I have been watching ABC news in recent days, and here is what I see. On economic issues, they have annointed the Bush agenda victorious. One inidcator is on social security. Until recently, the issue was referred to as "privatizing social security." Now it is called "modernizing social security" and it is simply listed as an initiative likely to be move forward. The change in terminology removes all whiff of controversy -- lots of people can oppose privatization, but what kind of troglodyte is opposed to modernization? On the other hand, when it comes to the social issues, ABC appears to be resisting. They ran a segment on the votes based on moral values, with the thesis that people mean many different things by moral values. Thay allotted sound bites to very innocuous definitions of moral values (respect for self and others). They presented conservative moral values in a mixed light (a preacher whose manner might turn off part of middle America), and then closed with rather sympathetic sound bites of liberal moral values (anti war and anti poverty, for example)... On another occasion, they featured Senator Specter as a serious roadblock to anti-abortion Supreme Court justices. My theory is that ABC, and likely much of the mainstream media, is going to put out the message that Bush has a mandate on his economic agenda, but not on his social agenda. As a media teacher, I find this fascinating. Theory #1 is that this represents the true bias of a large segment of the reporters in the media. Althoug conventional wisdom has it that the slant is simply conservative, the truth is that the national networks and much of the printed press is fairly conservative on economic matters but quite liberal on social issues. (Thus the obvious disdain for so-called wedge issues, yet the tendency to call it class warfare when lower class picks on higher class but not vice versa.) According to this theory, Mr. Kerry may have lost, but the press has not; they can still get their conservative economics while trying to thwart conservative social issues. Theory #2 is that this represents a smart money bet. Typically, social conservatives and economic conservatives make good electoral allies, but in terms of policy, economic conservatives usually gather most of the spoils. Despite President Bush's appeal to conservative religion, it is probably true that his actual priorities are in the realm of business, and that is where he will spend his political capital. Thus the press is just preparing us for where events will undoubtedly take us.