Though Scott Brown used a Facebook group’s call for Rachel Maddow to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts to drum up support in March, the rumors never died down. So Maddow is once again denying rumormongering she might float a campaign, telling an audience yesterday at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government she “will never be” a politico. (She also says she stopped “trying to change the world” as an activist on on March 9, 2007, when she helped launch Air America.) “We have made a market in electioneering that has nothing to do with taking office.”
lay off
Rachel Maddow Is Sick Of You Trying To Get Her To Become a Politician
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reason
Of course she would rather condemn from the pulpit then face the responsibility of governing least she sour her image to the lovers of her demagoguery.
Pat Duffy
Why would she want to run for an Office? To me it’s always amazing how when we get an “Out” person in a field not known for US, the 1st thing many folks want them to do is leave it…..
Shouldn't certain gay sites & their commenters stop bullying gays too? ( John from England)
@ reason
Ooohh ahhh…
Maybe, just maybe it’s because the system is so soiled that as soon as you swear on that bible, your hands are tied in the political system that is nigh, dirty and corrupt.
Fact.
reason
@Shouldn’t certain gay sites & their commenters stop bullying gays too? ( John from England): Sure thing, but commentators like her on both the left and right are responsible for a large part of the corruption and division. They play off the confines of the system to tarnish reputations and lead personal attacks against the people they disagree with. She is as responsible for the tea party as the goons on the right, they are all provocateurs that are convincing Americans that the “other” 35-50% are our enemies that need to be silenced or destroyed. The government is merely a snapshot of the populist, that the media plays a strong role in shaping and soiling. It’s to the point where when a president goes overseas to try to help the country the “other side” is overjoyed at any setbacks experienced even though it will negatively impact them. The pundits are promoting a culture where Americans would rather see one suffer at the peril of the country then bear the thoughts of the “other” experiencing the joy that success brings. Albeit if the other is a GBLT, religious, different political affiliation, or what ever other subdivided category that has been created.
CJ
She’s rarely shown the ability to see both sides of an issue. Similar to most Tea Party politicians, there are too many divisive people in politics. Of course, that’s 80% of our elected population. Maddow would only just add to that group of partisans. We need people that are willing to see both sides, compromise, work with others, etc. There is just way too much partisanship right now. Of course, didn’t Obama say that he’d change Washington and be a fierce advocate?
j
Demagoguery??? Really?? Did you really just say rachael maddow runs a demagoguery and did you also sign your post “reason”? Idiocy-1 Humanity-0
C'mon
Too late. She already is a politician.
the crustybastard
@reason:
Couldn’t you make some small effort to inspect your posts for hypocrisy before hitting “Submit”?
I mean seriously, it’s not even fun smacking you down anymore. It’s like beating up a retarded kid.
ewe
No television commentator with their own show is going to give up the money they make to become a talking walking excuse for public service. Politicians would rather a television show themselves too.
reason
@the crustybastard: There is no hypocrisy, that is why you resort to personal attacks. Ripping a page straight out of Maddow’s play book.
reason
@j: I have no idea what you are talking about. Run a demagoguery?
Jose
@reason:
Have you ever seen her show? I agree that all these pundits are largely turning America’s political landscape into a battlefield but if there’s ANYONE that does their research and conducts fair and incisive interviews then it’s Rachel Maddow.
I can tell you feel strongly about pundits but you’re kind of hypocritical when you go so far as to call her a demagogue and her fans “lovers” of demagoguery. Isn’t that the kind of polarizing and exaggerated language that you despise? What discussion has that inspired beyond insulting her and her fans?
I don’t agree with everything she says but she doesn’t present her show as unbiased news (unlike some) but as a part of the late night opinion hours. She’s a great and intelligent liberal point of view…. I mean, at least she never yells or rants at her viewers like Keith Olberman or Glenn Beck or dedicates entire segments to throwing blame without offering solutions.
robert
reason..the Tea Party is a creation of Fox News and people like Karl Rove and the Koch brothers..they are just disaffected white Republicans…they existed and came out in droves during the Clinton administration as well..blaming their existence on Rachel is weird to say the least. CJ if you look at site like political wire by Teagan Goodard you will see this is the most divisive divided Congress in years.. a lot of Democratic Blue Dogs.. conservative Democrats in swing districts who voted like Republicans….are gone…there is no middle left in either the House or Senate..again blaming this on Rachel is weird.. the american people have voted and they have said they dont want a middle that will compromise so deal with it
reason
@Jose: Yes I have seen her show several times, when she first came on I was thinking how refreshing, someone that is a little to the left but on my side. That is where the problem starts with a lot of viewers, a lot of the points she makes sort of blends with your ideology and you become blind to the divisive nature of her show. She is also not bombastic and shouting down people, which you will find is always an excellent tactic to make you look more reasonable. Think of a court room, an individual that is angry and erratic may be telling the truth, and the one that is calm and gentle maybe lying out of there teeth, but a good number of people will automatically put more weight towards the calm persons arguments. There are a lot of intelligent commentators, Bill O’reilly is one of them, they do their research then parse and twist the information to their viewpoint. Rachel may not be as bad as Limbaugh whose name one could use as an alternate definition of demagogue, but she still manipulates information that incites people. I didn’t notice early on until she started covering topics that I am well versed in, and I was like what a minute those are very hazy truths at best. She is smart about it by shrouding some of it in truthful well thought out information. I started to realize that as well researched her shows are these were not simple misstatements or slips of the pen. Bill does the same thing but to a much greater extent, and since you are not attuned to his ideologue it is much easier to pickup on. Then you have to focus on the information she chooses to broadcast, and that is how the media gets you, you can cherry pick details out of a story or topic that misrepresent the essence. For instance broadcasting the most horrific statements from focus on the family who’s “normal” points can largely deviate from the conservative establishment. It is easy for one to take that information and view it as a representation of the GOP, then why wouldn’t one be angry as hell. I am also sure some of her fans pickup on it but they love that kind of stuff, they may be in the minority, some just don’t realize it. It is hard to be more nuanced on these blogs with out rattling out a page worth of stuff.
@robert: It would be a mistake to paint them with a broad brush like that, their ranks contain a larger cross section then the Clinton years, some of these people are just sick of continued government failures. Most economist wouldn’t mark this administrations progress as a failure considering the depth of the inherited disaster, but some people are just tired after ten years of turbulence. That is another story all in itself, but I am sure that we both now about the section of the tea party we are talking about. I can’t get all of my thoughts out in these short comments, but I will try to get some points across. Rachel is not the originator of this culture of destruction, but she is a player and promoter. This whole idea of divided America is more rooted in Gingrich’s philosophy, the media has taken it and spread it to the public. They have focused on the most divisive 15% that the parties disagree on and touted it above everything else. They then focus on the messages coming from the far edges of the party they don’t support and put them in the box. Of course depending on whether they lean right or forward they put some more reasoned versions of the party they support on. This actually shapes the public’s perspective from a heavily skewed base point, they think the other party is ridiculous therefore all of their ideas must be destroyed. The portions of the Tea parties that we are talking about are created. Then when reasonable senators emerge and try to cross the isle they get attacked by citizens in their party, “how dare you negotiate with those crazies.” Looking toward re-election and pleasing their base they start to shift, well if they shift and their colleague doesn’t then the colleague looks bad. The media that supports the colleagues party attacks the colleague to get them to fall in line, making the public think that the normal colleague is out of line forcing them to shift… It is just a vicious cycle that got us to where we are today, where senators won’t look at members from the other party when passing in the hallways. It would make people who were in congress 20 years ago heads spin to see the hatred that has swept in, and the media is equally culpable. I can guarantee you that we will destroy this country if the tea party takes over the GOP and the radical left takes over the democrats.
Jose
@reason:
You make a lot of good points but I can’t really see her as conniving as you make her out to be. Not a perfect journalist? Sure. Biased? Clearly. But downright scheming? It can just as easily be said that she’s calm in order to not incite those who disagree with her and to reach a more reasonable conclusion as it is to say that she does it to lure people into anger or partisanship.
Again, you make great points and I appreciate how skeptical you are with the news, but I still think she covers many non-partisan topics fantastically (getting in-depth, relating to the past, reminding why this is important, putting information over entertainment, and not cramming it into just a couple minutes). I’ll take your advice though and take her show with a grain of salt. You’re absolutely right about giving people we agree with more leeway when they do insincere things.
Thanks for the reply.
Andrew
She is gross. How abou a campaign to get her to dress like a woman instead of a 15 year old boy.
Andrew
She is gross. How about a campaign to get her to dress like a woman instead of a 15 year old boy.