MARC CHOQUETTE
Online Content Manager
There is a strange, unexpected twist in the news media that comes with candidates announcing that they’re running for president two years before Election Day, and we are just now beginning to learn of it.
The optimists would have predicted this drawn-out process to be beneficiary, in that reporters have more time to carefully hash out where each candidate stands on the issues.
But to any news junkie (the pessimists), we all know it just gives the press more time to dig the dirt (most of which seems to be inconsequential), catch that weird slip up on the campaign trail (McCain’s “Bomb Iran!” Beach Boys song), and generally make their lives a living hell (see Limbaugh/O’Reilly/ Stewart/Colbert)… for a lot longer than they could have dreamed of in the 1970s.
And the candidates have more time to stay as close to the middle as possible, mastering the wordy “non-answer” and how to duck questions all for the end goal of having as many people as possible with a positive opinion (not necessarily a knowledgeable one) of you when the race is over.
With much of the media doing its best to dumb down the entire process, it seems to have rendered the race to be one big attempt at trying not to pull a Howard Dean too early in the game (“beeeyahhh!”).
Almost weekly, we have a cable news station staging its own presidential debate. In fact, the Democrats debated on CNN just last night.
Maybe we will get to see a montage of five-second sound bytes tomorrow to help us digest. Add in YouTube and all the opinion writers and talking heads and we hear a lot each day about these candidates, but how many of us actually know what their plans are and what they stand for?
The focus seems to be not on the issues, but on the irrelevant externalities — like the fact that Dick Cheney is Barack Obama’s distant cousin or that Pat Robertson has endorsed Rudolph Giuliani.
I mean, does Hillary Clinton’s cleavage really reflect her ideas on reforming healthcare?
Why this stuff gets called “news” is beyond my comprehension. Anyone who bases a vote off of what Pat Robertson, or anyone else for that matter, has to say should not even be allowed to vote in the first place. The whole idea screams in the face of the “think for yourself” mentality that encapsulates the American spirit.
It is woefully obvious the dialogue has devolved from intense debates of the issues into carefully positioning yourself into the position that pisses off the fewest people. This is not the way to do politics.
So voter beware. The media’s coverage of the Presidential race might render you pro-this or anti-that if you do not watch out.
If it is worse, it could have you talking about expensive haircuts (Edwards), the blackness of a candidate, and other irrelevant matters.
11-15-2007