News media orthodoxy

National | The view from Hollywood: Democrat ticket is OK | Tim Graham

Democrats could not have been thinking of projecting an image of social conservatism when they selected Los Angeles as the site of their 2000 convention. But the clash between the party's hard-left Hollywood fundraising base and Al Gore's selection of Hollywood critic Joseph Lieberman created a tension that would be hard for the media to ignore.

In 1992, Al Gore joined Bill Clinton to project an image of two "conservative Democrats." Eight years later, despite Al Gore's solicitation of Hollywood bigwigs (he applauded ABC for "forcing" Americans to confront the coming-out of lesbian comic Ellen DeGeneres), reporters presented the Gore-Lieberman ticket as two traditional peas in a pod.

NBC's Claire Shipman thought liberals would greet Sen. Lieberman warily: "He is a conservative Democrat and they probably don't agree with everything he supports, but, you know, Gore is a pretty conservative Democrat." As the Democratic convention began, CBS's Bryant Gumbel mourned to one guest, "You talked about Hollywood squares. You could have been talking about Al Gore and Joe Lieberman. They don't really fit. How's Hollywood viewing the ticket?"