Make no mistake - gaffes have been around for generations

Something wholly apolitical, a crane collapse, knocked from headlines statements by the Rev. Michael Pfleger. (Tami Chappell/reuters-file)

The parade of candidates' mistakes has been fast and furious throughout this campaign season, creating the impression that our future leaders are the most gaffe-prone in history.

In fact, campaigns have been seizing on opponents' misstatements for generations. What's different this time is speed - and the ever-intensifying vigilance of the gaffe police. The rise of blogs and 24-hour cable networks means that any gaffe, however small, can rise to prominence within hours, and the mainstream media can't resist the temptation to jump in.

And with the help of ubiquitous cameras and well-honed opposition-research machines, political parties have become more adept at compiling, packaging, and promoting their rivals' missteps. The Republican National Committee has staffers watching every Democratic media appearance - sometimes via Internet live stream - and disseminating mistakes, via press release, with lightning speed.

So after Barack Obama last week confused the Buchenwald with Auschwitz death camps, the RNC issued a series of releases, including one that added the error to a list of Obama's "tall tales." The Democratic National Committee countered with a top-10 list of presumptive Republican nominee John McCain misstatements, including mistaking Iraq for Iran and referring to Czechoslovakia as if it still exists.

Each party's goal was the same, said Tom Fiedler, the former Miami Herald executive editor who is a fellow at Harvard's Shorenstein Center and the incoming dean of Boston University's College of Communication.

Press releases about gaffes are like "search-and-destroy missions that the campaigns are sending out, just to see where they may find a weak spot," he said. And the parties know from experience, he said, that a pile-on can work.

In 2000, Al Gore's perceived tendency toward exaggeration shaped his campaign persona. In 2004, Republicans used the same tactics to raise questions about John Kerry's Vietnam war-hero status. That particular battle is still playing out: Last week, Kerry took part in an Obama campaign conference call to highlight McCain's misstatements on Iraq. The Massachusetts GOP issued a press release titled "John Kerry's History of Gaffes."

When it comes to presidential campaigns, of course, a focus on misstatements, character issues, and associations is nothing remotely new. Political consultant Michael Goldman, who teaches media and politics at Tufts University, notes that in 1884, Republican James G. Blaine was felled by a last-minute campaign misstep that sounds eerily familiar: Blaine sat by silently at a campaign event as a minister insulted Catholics by complaining about "rum, Romanism, and rebellion."

In the modern hyper-heated media atmosphere, both parties hope that a thick-enough record of gaffes becomes part of an overarching narrative, said Robert Lichter, president of the watchdog group Center for Media and Public Affairs. Democrats hope to portray McCain as old and losing his marbles. Republicans hope to paint Obama as inexperienced and unqualified. And if reporters are likely to downplay a first or second mistake, Lichter said, they might still latch onto a pattern.

"Gaffes occur twice: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce," Lichter said. "You can't put words into a candidate's mouth, but you can make reporters hear the words in a certain way. That's the trick."

Cable news producers are feeling the barrage. "This is the most aggressive the campaigns have been," said Marty Ryan, executive producer of political programming for Fox News Channel.

The networks insist that they're onto the game, and that they vet propaganda and rumors before giving them play. Media watchdog groups from both sides of the political spectrum have raised quibbles about the networks' relative fairness. Ryan dismissed complaints: "Whatever the network is," he said, "somebody is going to disagree with how it's been played."

But the big demand for content, producers say, can amplify news of mistakes. John Reiss, executive producer of MSNBC's "Hardball," says what determines a story's play most often is what else is going on.

Reiss was out of town earlier this month when Hillary Clinton referred to Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 assassination - to make a point, she said, about the timeline of the Democratic nominating process. But Reiss said he had a feeling the story would get big play, not just because it struck many as inflammatory, but because it broke on a Friday before Memorial Day weekend, a typically slow news time.

With a political scandalette, "some other story has to step off and push it off center stage or it will remain there," Reiss said. "You have to feed the beast, and the beast is hungry. These stories tend to have a shelf life longer than they deserve sometimes."

On the other hand, the current speed of the campaign news cycle means stories can dissipate even more quickly than before, like a series of test flares that quickly fizzle out, Fiedler said.

"In this current environment, [a story's] half life is reduced dramatically," Fielder said. "Because the next thing that comes along, even if it's not anywhere near as significant, takes its place."

And sometimes, something wholly apolitical can knock a political story from headlines. When Reiss arrived at work Friday morning, he said, MSNBC, Fox News, and CNN were airing reports about statements against Hillary Clinton made by a Catholic priest, the Rev. Michael Pfleger, an Obama supporter.

"My first thought was, ugh, do we really have to do this?" Reiss said. "Is this going to wind up being wall-to-wall cable today?"

Then a crane collapsed in New York, the news channels jumped into action, and the Pfleger story started to look smaller. By late morning, Reiss was thinking that when "Hardball" aired at 5 p.m., he would mention the story as part of the record, but downplay its importance.

"I just don't see why this is a big story," he said. "It can become a big story if we make it one."

In the end, it didn't lead the hour on "Hardball." But as the crane collapse story waned, the Pfleger footage soared, dominating the cable channels all Friday evening, echoing the coverage of the uber-gaffe story of the campaign - the statements by Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com.