Poll: George Santos - who dropped the ball on highlighting his lies/character prior to the election?

[tenderfoot]

I'm going with the local media/NY Times. Something tells me they knew all of Santos's transgressions well before the election and chose not to run the stories because it would ruin their Democrats in disarray, crime, gas prices, inflation, open borders, Hershel Walker, etc. narratives.

13 votes, 1 pass | Time left: Time expired
	His Democratic Opponent Robert Zimmerman
	1 (8%)
	Democrats
	0 (0%)
	Republicans
	0 (0%)
	The Local Media (including the NY Times)
	8 (62%)
	All of the above
	4 (31%)
	Other
	0 (0%)
	1 DU member did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[uponit7771]

1. K&R,

[niyad]

2. No, the question is why did the puke party run this guy.

[Hortensis]

3. Can't vote for media AND the GOP. No check for "voters and nonvoters."

The Democrats put out an 87-page report on this guy. I'm going for everyone but the Democrats stuck with this creep.

Contributing reasons I read included that this took place in the context of a lot of big New York elections and that the vast amounts of RW money flooding in and RW media attention lifted and obscured Santos' little boat along with the rest of the big, noisy RW crowd.

When the noise died down, Santos had been elected, and the Republicans got a house majority, THEN it became a GOOD story for the media.

[GoCubsGo]

8. Well, one can't expect the GOP to do anything about it.

All they care about is gaining power. If it means covering for a fraud candidate, no problem. All you have to do is look at how they circled the wagons around Trump, Dumbya, Gaetz, Jordan, MTG, Bo Bo the Clown, and other frauds--after they got caught. Why should they be any different when it comes to this asshole?

[ecstatic]

4. The press is supposed to be one of the safeguards for our democracy

If any news organizations knew the truth beforehand, they should be shut down.

[Hortensis]

5. :) Shut down the safeguard? Actually, the North Shore Leader, serving

that community, reported on it starting in September.

Should have been all that was needed, but you can't force people to pay attention, to prioroitize truth and their own integrity over an object that sparkles at them, or to vote.

Or the NYT, some of whose people LIVE there, to run with a story that could endanger GOP chances to get a house majority.

The North Shore Leader even reluctantly endorsed a Democrat against Santos:

“This newspaper would like to endorse a Republican,” but Santos “is so bizarre, unprincipled and sketchy that we cannot. … He boasts like an insecure child — but he’s most likely just a fabulist — a fake.”

[ecstatic]

6. Interesting. Wow.

Yeah, shutting them down would be self-defeating and contrary to our constitution, so that's off the table... but I really think they need to be confronted by New Yorkers. The people with power in that organization need to do some serious self-reflection. This isn't a game, this is our lives. The direction and future of our nation is at stake. If they're not part of the solution, they are part of the problem.

[Hortensis]

9. +100! The NYT egregiously covered him AFTER the election, in December.

Not that you'd expect better from Fox than the NYT, but this WaPo story mentions that Fox's Sean Hannity and Jesse Watters are North Shore subscribers.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/12/29/north-shore-leader-santos-scoop/

[Kaleva]

10. The press exists to make a profit for their owners and investor's

That's it . They are under no obligation to inform the public.

[yardwork]

7. I voted all of the above, but the Democratic Party needs to step up.

We can't count on the media to be investigative reporters. We can't count on people seeking out information. Everything is "infotainment" sound bites now. It's dumb and it's a shame, but it's simply where we are. The Democratic Party needs to get better at competing on this new playing field.

John Fetterman ran a great campaign that used social media, sound bites, and plain language that resonated with a broad range of people. The DNC needs to evolve and get better at this.

[Hortensis]

11. Yes, but what would it take for this to catch fire during many

Last edited Fri Dec 30, 2022, 11:19 AM - Edit history (1)

other, bigger, far more dramatic elections -- realizing after the fact that what they did DIDN'T. What role did the NYT's refusal to cover this genuinely freaky story in its own living room before the election play? (Also the NY Post, Daily News, other sources Long Islanders look at.)

The only people who really needed to hear truth about Santos, the only ones whose votes COULD matter, were the constitutents living in NY-3. All who paid some attention to their own election WERE told, and they elected that dysfunctional little Republican creep by 7-1/2 points.

Nonvoters of course blew it all off and no doubt are pointing to it as proof that politicians are all corrupt and voting's a waste of time.

Oh, btw, the Democratic candidate was a member of the DNC in 2022, which anyone looking him up would see. So that made me wonder. After 2015-2016, a lot of people on the left AND right are no doubt still totally clueless and deluded about what the DNC does. But most will still be affected by the insidious, BIG LIE implanted by anti-Democratic mindfuckers that it's in charge of making billionaires richer.

[yardwork]

12. If we want to win elections we have to get better at campaigning.

I live in North Carolina. This recent election was a disgrace. Numerous districts in NC didn't even run a Democrat, just ceded the elections to Republicans running unopposed. As a result, we lost the senate election - which the Democratic nominee could have won. We lost the state Supreme Court. The Republicans who control both houses of the state legislature are now one vote away from a super majority. In January they will pass an insane abortion bill and our Democratic governor - who is awesome and very popular - won't be able to veto it.

The DNC let us down in NC and there are national consequences.

With this Santos character, the DNC should have poured money into local ads and social media, ensuring that he would lose. Instead, they left our Democratic candidate to fight for himself.

[Hortensis]

13. Yes, but we DO win elections. MORE people DO vote their good sense

and integrity for us. But that leaves the rest.

Imo, the biggest reason we don't do better among all who claim our ideals is that some routinely deep-six whatever intellect and integrity they have to vote for candidates who lie to them -- because they "like" them. Political dishonesty normalized and accepted.

Seeing truth as simply one acceptable choice is a FAR DEEPER problem than simple ignorance.

As for money, we raised more on these midterm elections than ever before in history and spent it all on this existential battle, amid constant arguments of where it would do the most good. But money's all about influencing voters anyway.

Truth has a way of being inadequate and unappealing compared to the sparkly delusions liars offer. That Democrats would promise new funding to "address homelessness" instead of promising to END it is often intereted (with encouragement from professional liars) as admission of corruption -- what's actually possible irrelevant.

That's a much bigger problem for liberal Democrats than our opponents -- For the most part mainstream Democratic candidates just don't make up lies touting what they can't do, or about their opponents, because they believe in and are excited about what they can achieve.

Dishonest candidates can create sparkly delusions out of hot air that some will happily trade their futures to grab at. WE CAN'T.

We're promising "only" sustainable national energy and "only" much stronger labor regulations when others are promising an end to poverty or an end to hoards of murderous immigrants.