I was an intern, does that make me a “strategist”?
In my top 5 reasons why I hate watching cable news (also in my top 5 reasons why I don’t watch cable news) is when I see some fool who doesn’t know what they are talking about but is helpfully labeled “Democratic strategist”. I don’t mean to generalize but 86% of the time, the people who show up on cable news with “Democratic strategist” appearing below them, are morons (note, this is 99% of the time on Fox News).
Daniel Libit helpful has written an article about the “strategist” phenomenon which explains that, as I thought, most of these people have no idea what they are talking about.
Among the things that the proliferation of TV cable news has wrought is slackened standards for what constitutes a political strategist. Now used as a catchall tag for a whole host of people with varied — and often peripheral — backgrounds in electoral politics, the term has all but lost its meaning.
“I think it’s absurd,” says Ed Rollins, a bona fide strategist who has held high-ranking positions in numerous Republican presidential campaigns. “Everyone calls themselves a strategist. I have been doing this for 40 years, I know most of the players, and I go on these shows and think, ‘Who are these people?’”
Preaching to the choir my man. Give me more.
“Many of these sort of more junior folks who have sort of made it into the ranks of analyst/commentator/strategist,” says one high-ranking cable news executive, “are only too happy to talk about things they don’t know about. Part of the problem is that because, again, they’re very glib, they’re good on TV. And if you ask someone the question and they give you a good-sounding answer, you might not know by asking them that it’s not their area of expertise.”
Others concur that the fractured nature of cable news time, particularly midday, allows almost anyone who’s articulate and politically inclined to act like a campaign insider. Rollins, who often appears on CNN himself, blames the cable news networks for “dumbing down” good analysis in the name of multitudinous voices. “I think the networks are idiotic in that they have capable people who have been around, but they want 12 panels,” he says. Independent TV analyst Andrew Tyndall thinks the “mislabeling” is also the product of the media’s unyielding “bid to seem as though they are inside the horse race.”
Here’s a great quote from a Republican strategist (a real one I assume):
“What’s frustrating for people who worked on campaigns is seeing these folks second-guessing decisions every day,” says one Republican strategist who has been a veteran of several presidential campaigns. “It has to be like an astronaut who spent their whole career and life trying to get to space, and you’ve got somebody who has never been there giving you an opinion of what it’s like on the moon.”
Again, I hate to generalize…but if you’ve appeared on TV with the label “Democratic strategist” (I could care less about the Republican ones) then you should have to apply to get back on to TV and you should probably never be allowed to work for a Democratic cause again.
Unless of course someone wants to put me on TV as a “Democratic Strategist”. I was an intern in 2004 afterall.
Yeah, to be a strategist I’d say you had to work IN A DECISION-MAKING CAPACITY on a succesful statewide campaign or a major-party presidential campaign.
Of course, I’m a strategist. I’m singlyhandedly heading up the Draft Bettis campaign. Put me on CNN.