By now, I suspect that most of you have heard the humorous little anecdote posted on the Huffington Post
yesterday:
On a section of McCain's site called "Cindy's Recipes," you can find seven recipes attributed to Cindy McCain, each with the heading "McCain Family Recipe." ... Some of the "McCain Family Recipes," were in fact, word-for-word copies of recipes on the Food Network site.
It's a minor gaffe, probably good for perhaps a day or two of "this is kinda funny" press coverage and nothing more. Some people were pushing the plagiarism angle, which is technically true, but I suspect that in the minds of the press corps plagiarizing Rachel Ray doesn't rise to the level of allegedly plagiarizing, oh, Neil Kinnock or Deval Patrick. Plus, it's the candidate's wife, not the actual candidate. To be honest, I don't think it would be a bad thing to learn that if/when Cindy McCain does cook she sometimes uses Food Network recipes -- as long as she were to give them credit, rather than pass them off as "McCain Family Recipes." I use Food Network recipes, too. I sure as heck don't ever make up my *own* recipes -- most people don't. Why on earth we would expect the wives of our presidential candidates to make up their own recipes is beyond me.
I think there is a case to be made that this cuts to the heart of the "elitism" issue. The whole point of putting "McCain Family Recipes" on the website is to make Cindy McCain -- and by association, John McCain -- look more like a middle-American homemaker rather than an heiress whose wealth may
may exceed $100 million. And who may not have ever cooked anything in her life. It's amazing that politicians are still able to get away with pretending to be something that they are not. You'd think the voters would have wised up to this kind of political theater by now. Instead of voting based on who bakes the best cookies, vote based on who'll give you the best health care. But apparently, they haven't.
So, there's that. But I don't think that is the worst part of this whole thing.
It just so happens that when I first heard about this story, I was having a conference call with my two fellow DU Admins, EarlG and Elad. I swear to you -- ask EarlG and Elad -- this is what I said:
"I'll tell you what happened here. This was not Cindy McCain's screw up. What happened is the McCain campaign wanted to put some recipes on their website, so some low-level McCain staffer asked an intern with nothing to do to get on Google and find some recipes to put on the website."
Lo and behold, if we are to believe the
McCain campaign response, I was right:
Yesterday, Huffington Post reported that at least three McCain "family recipes" on a section of the senator’s presidential campaign site were "word-for-word copies of recipes on the Food Network site." TMZ.com now reports that the McCain campaign has already taken down the recipes and is branding the affair a "low-level unpaid staff debacle." The staffer in question has reportedly been "swiftly dealt with."
You read that right -- they blamed a volunteer.
Not only that, but the volunteer was "swiftly dealt with." No, they didn't discipline the overpriced Internet strategist who decided to put "McCain family recipes" on the campaign website. No, they didn't discipline the mid-level McCain staffer who gave this all-important job to a volunteer. They didn't even admit that it was fucked-up to have a section of their website for Cindy McCain to post her family recipes -- without actually asking Cindy McCain to provide the damn recipes herself.
No. They they blamed the intern. The unpaid volunteer who works their ass off for their hero John McCain for *NOTHING* has been thrown under the bus.
This, my friends, is why "Recipe-gate" matters. This is about values. It's about how you treat the little guy. It's about being grateful for the thousands of unpaid, unknown nobodies who support your campaign.
I have run this website for seven years, and we could not do it without our staff of unpaid volunteer moderators. I admit that I do not always treat them as well as they deserve. They do a great job, and this website would be IMPOSSIBLE without their help. Sometimes they make mistakes -- they are human, after all. But when that happens the responsibility is my own. Even on those rare occasions when I have to overturn their decisions, I try not to appear to be throwing a moderator under the bus in public. This is why we don't let you trash the moderators. Because they give their hearts-and-souls for this place, and they get nothing in return, except the satisfaction of knowing they are helping.
