TV
\n ratings were the lowest on record<\/a>, even though the networks were
\n broadcasting only an action-packed hour of political rhetoric per night.
\n The Dowbrigade has little sympathy, however, for the party hacks who
\n were bemoaning the lack of prime-time network TV coverage.<\/p>\nThat’s what happens when you try to stage professional wrestling without
\n the violence, plot lines or naked flesh. It made C-Span feel like a cliffhanger. If
\n you want to improve ratings, guys, try hanging the losing candidates
\n from their heels, or let the candidates wives have at it in a pool of
\n vegetable oil. Give fabulous floor prizes, and let viewers at home win,
\n too. Get with it.<\/p>\n
The network spurned us whine won’t hold up anyway. Two-thirds
\n of American households have cable or satellite TV these days, and for
\n them gavel to gavel coverage was only a click away. In fact, the absence
\n of network coverage only affected the 33% of the population without cable,
\n a group consisting largely of unemployed wastrels and the super educated
\n who actually read books. The first group doesn’t vote, and the
\n other has already made up their minds.<\/p>\n
We have created a rowdy, sex-obsessed wired electorate with the attention
\n span of a hyperactive six-year-old. If you want to involve them in the
\n political dialog you are going to have to speed things up considerably,
\n change your vocabulary and use lots of special effects. <\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How to explain the miniscule to negligible boost Kerry got form giving the "speech of his life" at the Democratic Product Rollout last Thursday. Was the show really so boring that nobody was watching it? Have all of the people … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1443],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esl-links"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/dowbrigade\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}