Campaign '04: Communications issues rank low on candidates' agendas

Published: 2004-08-09

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Trying to find communications policy issues in the George W. Bush and John Kerry campaigns is like trying to find public service programming on a commercial TV or radio station. It's barely there. Just as network affiliate clearances for Catholic Communication Campaign-produced religious specials shrink from year to year, the presidential campaigns' stances on communications and culture has dwindled over the past dozen years. Rap music took center stage briefly in the 1992 campaign, as the song "Cop Killer" from rapper-actor Ice-T's rock group, Body Count, was vilified by cultural critics, and Democratic candidate Bill Clinton took rapper Sister Souljah to task for her militant raps. In 1996, Sen. Robert Dole, the Republican nominee, blasted the movie industry. In 2000, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., the Democratic nominee for vice president and a persistent critic of what he called "trash TV," was chided by his political opponents for muting his criticisms during the campaign. This year, with the exception of the occasional rallying cry about hooking up rural America to the latest technological advances in communication -- one plank in the Democratic Party's 2004 platform -- the candidates and their parties have been silent about communications issues.

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