Lou Dobbs, the network's stern, fatherly celebrity, had decided that our town was the perfect place to promote his book. No, wait, he came to conduct an earnest, thorough, hard-hitting and heart-rending exploration of the War on the Middle Class — coincidentally, the title of his new book.
On October 17, he anchored his nightly newscast from the Liberty Memorial, with a gorgeous view of Union Station, the iconic Western Auto sign and the rest of our impressive downtown behind him. His face seemed to flush with affection — and inflection — every time he said the words Kansas City, almost as if he were singing them like Wilbert Harrison.
"Kansas City is a city filled with working Americans and a city that is filled with the issues that confront and challenge these working Americans here in Kansas City and all over the country every day," Dobbs intoned, stating the obvious as if it were some big revelation.
Among other choice bits of Missouriana, Dobbs promised coverage of the Talent-McCaskill race — "possibly the tightest Senate race in the entire country." Soon, Ken-doll White House correspondent John King was reporting from the campaign trail in southwest Missouri, following Jim Talent as he preached against gay marriage and abortion. Then King joined Claire McCaskill, who acknowledged that she hadn't listened hard enough to rural Missourians in her last campaign, when she lost the governor's race to Matt Blunt.
Mayor Kay Barnes made an appearance, looking serious as she answered Dobb's queries about "just how is her city facing the issues brought on by this war on the middle class." (Rest assured, middle-class KC soldiers: Barnes is creating jobs, Kansas City is making progress on improving schools, and we have model programs for dealing with illegal immigrants.)
The next night, "CNN Election Express" buses clogged the corner of Valentine and Broadway as Dobbs hosted a "town hall" meeting at the Uptown Theater. In the Valentine Shopping Center parking lot, stylish young CNN employees set up the CNN Express Yourself area — a glorified Internet café with flat-screen TVs tuned to CNN and two life-sized cardboard cut-outs of Dobbs. CNN spokeswoman Mara Gassmann told Pitch reporter Carolyn Szczepanski that during the network's nationwide tour, as many as 25,000 people had stopped by to make bumper stickers or "engage with other independent thinkers." But few passers-by seemed interested on this Wednesday night, maybe because the air was so cold — it seemed as if snow might start flying.
Inside the Uptown was a bizarre confab. Surrounding Dobbs, who stood on a round stage beneath the theater's sparkly faux-Mediterranean details, invited local middle-class warriors were dressed for national TV and sitting quietly on bleachers. To come up with this racially diverse yet solidly middle-American audience, Gassmann told me later, "We reached out to teachers' groups, unions, small-business owners, among others, so they could invite individuals they know."
But it wasn't really a town hall meeting. Mostly, the locals provided an audience for Dobbs' segments profiling sad-sack middle-class families from places other than Kansas City. The Hicks family of Indiana, where husband David has to choose between paying the mortgage or paying his student loans, provided an example of how the cost of higher education hurts the middle class. The Clem family of Kentucky, two generations of auto workers, had been hit by the exporting of American manufacturing jobs to cheap overseas labor markets. The Curtis family from Parkland, Washington, had to declare bankruptcy when their health insurance wouldn't cover the medical bills after their son was born with holes in his heart, a disconnected lung and undeveloped arteries.
Comments (0)