Pennsylvania is done, we have Indiana and North Carolina to look forward to – yes, the national gastric disorder I call Indigestion ’08 continues. And with it endures the media’s most annoying analytical blind spots.
Michigan and Florida
Missing in all the theatrical pleas to help “disenfranchised” Michigan/Florida voters is the fact that their votes aren’t part of a big-D Democratic process, but are involved in an internal party matter. Complaining about disenfranchised voters in these two states is like complaining that members of the local Country Club were disenfranchised in voting for their officers. When it comes to Florida and Michigan, the people responsible for screwing over voters aren’t the candidates or the DNC; the fault lies with state party leaders who tried to get cute by breaking their own party’s rules. Put their heads on a platter, let them apologize to voters for throwing out their votes, and let’s all remember that…
The Primaries Are Not The General Election.
As primaries involve only a subset of general election voters and occur within a substantially different dynamic of goals and methods, a candidate’s win or loss in any given state doesn’t automatically translate to winning or losing that state in the general election. For example, California may have gone to Clinton, but it’s reasonable to believe that in a general election Democrats will vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is because they just won’t vote for McCain. Similarly, devoted Republicans are likely to stick with McCain regardless of which Democrat wins their state’s primary. Apples and oranges, here, but the distinction between voting for a President and a party – a club, really – voting for a person to submit to the general population as a presidential candidate is crucial. Erasing that distinction involves corrupting the political process until there is only the spin of the horse race and none of the substance of informed civic participation.
Talk Smack About McCain? Not With this Liberal Media
Conservatives whine about that so-called liberal media bias, but if there is such a thing, it’s in hibernation. The media has had a field day with Obama, overblowing, misinterpreting and otherwise distorting Obama’s “controversies” while giving McCain a free pass and all but kow-towing to Clinton. (Here’s an interesting perspective on the media’s bias against Obama: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/24/) Clinton, of course, claims her mis-remembered trip to Bosnia was a “mistake” because she is, after all, human. Right. Saying her plane landed on a Sunday instead of a Monday is a mistake: claiming to have braved sniper fire when, in reality, she braved a child’s poem is something else altogether. Where Obama was being honest when discussing voter’s bitterness, and where he never endorsed or supported the Rev. Wright’s words – and the Reverend isn’t even campaigning for Obama – Clinton’s yen for exaggerating seems to be downplayed.
But it’s McCain, however, who is really having a good laugh. Here’s a man who gets important foreign policy facts wrong and needs Joe Lieberman to whisper sweet corrections in his ear. Here’s a man who sings and jokes about bombing foreign countries. Here’s a flip-flopper who now supports many things he once opposed, like the Bush tax cuts, gave up on legislation he once supported, like his own campaign finance reform bill, or simply waffled, like on abortion and torture. More neocon than neocon, he espouses “rogue state rollback,” as if the U.S. is the world cop called on by manifest destiny to impose law and order on the evil-doers of the world. In other words, McCain is Bush III, and the only critical look at his candidacy seems to be coming almost exclusively from the independent media. And what does it say about a man he sought and received an endorsement from, the Rev. Hagee, a man who believes Katrina was divine retribution for New Orleans’ sins? If the media really had a liberal bias, McCain’s fraudulence would be a heated topic of discussion. As it stands, the media only serves to preserve the establishment, which is no surprise since it is the establishment.
But why am I still surprised that the media is overflowing with misleading assumptions and weak political analyses? Before the Pennsylvania primary, the likes of MSNBC and McClatchy put out polls (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/election2008/) on key demographics like…bowlers and beer drinkers!
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