James Carville

About the author: James Carville, along with Paul Begala, was the political strategist of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. He is now a partner in the political consulting firm of Carville and Begala.

The traditional media exercise a great deal of power in electoral politics as a filter of the candidates' messages. The goal of campaign strategists, or "spin doctors," is to get the media to report their candidate's message in the best light. The job of the media, however, is to find new and controversial things to report. Reporters sometimes use shabby techniques to produce controversy in their stories. Moreover, once they write a story, reporters are reluctant to examine it from a different point of view or even to correct errors in it.

No one understands the power of the media in this...