We have officially entered the smack-talk portion of the primary season. The conservative base is smack talking John McCain and, in response, McCain is kissing up to them to win their votes.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are smack talking each other. You really can’t even be surprised by how much the media loves this stuff. I mean, we are Americans after all. Who doesn’t love a good ol’ verbal sparring match over domestic and foreign policies?
It seems as though the media figures we already know each candidate’s position on the issues, so all that’s left to focus on is the candidates attacking each other. It’s not about the differences in their stances on Iraq or how to fix the economy, but on a series of he-said-she-said-no-I-didn’t-yes-you-did’s.
As the American voter, all we can do is sit back, watch and enjoy.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
What's the issue with the flaw?
Anyone looking for an issue-based campaign will be sorely disappointed if they focus on our primary season, which has been so drama-filled and devoid of any real substance that one could mistake candidates dropping out for people being voted off of Survivor: White House Island.
The greatest example of this was Hillary’s “crying” episode; crying being in quotation marks because anyone that saw the video knew she didn’t cry. But hey, who cares, right? Why have a rational discussion about her health care policy when we can focus on her crying? That’s a much better story to tell and, more importantly, one that requires any sort of thinking to tell or take in.
Then there’s John McCain. Is he conservative enough? Will he be able to win over the hearts and minds of his party’s base? Tune in to NBC this Tuesday for all-new episode of America’s Next Top Model to find out.
The lack of focus on the actual issues and specific policies that each candidate brings to the table is disheartening and serves as one of many examples as to why it’s hard to take our election process seriously.
The greatest example of this was Hillary’s “crying” episode; crying being in quotation marks because anyone that saw the video knew she didn’t cry. But hey, who cares, right? Why have a rational discussion about her health care policy when we can focus on her crying? That’s a much better story to tell and, more importantly, one that requires any sort of thinking to tell or take in.
Then there’s John McCain. Is he conservative enough? Will he be able to win over the hearts and minds of his party’s base? Tune in to NBC this Tuesday for all-new episode of America’s Next Top Model to find out.
The lack of focus on the actual issues and specific policies that each candidate brings to the table is disheartening and serves as one of many examples as to why it’s hard to take our election process seriously.
Undecided states
If you were to ever try and explain the primary process to someone who did not understand it, chances are you will develop a severe migraine. It is a mind-numbing process where you have to suspend logical thought and practicality in order to get emotionally invested. Luckily for us, the media has no problem doing this.
Now, to be fair, you can’t really blame the media for our country’s absurd method of picking presidential nominees (or presidents, for that matter). It’s not like they diagrammed this painful, never-ending process. However, they do play a substantial role in making some votes more important and meaningful than others.
Take the first few primaries for example. Unless your name was Rudy Giuliani, all of the focus was on Iowa and New Hampshire. Media attention was turned to these two states in hopes of lauding either a Republican and/or a Democrat as the front-runner. Fortunately for ratings purposes, that didn’t happen.
Then came Super Tuesday. John McCain was declared victorious while Obama and Clinton were now locked in a dead heat.
Now we are told that Ohio and Texas are the two most important states. My point is simply this: by arbitrarily assigning states more importance than others (or even states that held primaries before), isn’t the media, in essence, disregarding everyone else’s vote. Since Obama and Clinton are neck-and-neck, and Ohio and Texas could deal a fatal blow to the Clinton campaign, doesn’t that make every other state’s vote meaningless? The primary season drags on for such an excruciatingly long time that candidates are forced to run in each and every state. If no clear-cut winner emerges, then the primary held in that state didn’t really do anything of value.
Again, that is more of a problem with the primary process itself, but the media can’t help but sit back and buy into it and, in turn, forcing us to buy into it as well.
But hey, at least Ohio and Texas benefit. They may end up picking who the Democratic nominee will be (as an aside, that may shatter the world record for irony as the chances of either Texas or Ohio voting Democratic in the November election is about as likely as John McCain picking Rush Limabugh to be his running mate).
And even if they don’t, we’ll just pack it in and hope the next state can make up our minds for us.
Now, to be fair, you can’t really blame the media for our country’s absurd method of picking presidential nominees (or presidents, for that matter). It’s not like they diagrammed this painful, never-ending process. However, they do play a substantial role in making some votes more important and meaningful than others.
Take the first few primaries for example. Unless your name was Rudy Giuliani, all of the focus was on Iowa and New Hampshire. Media attention was turned to these two states in hopes of lauding either a Republican and/or a Democrat as the front-runner. Fortunately for ratings purposes, that didn’t happen.
Then came Super Tuesday. John McCain was declared victorious while Obama and Clinton were now locked in a dead heat.
Now we are told that Ohio and Texas are the two most important states. My point is simply this: by arbitrarily assigning states more importance than others (or even states that held primaries before), isn’t the media, in essence, disregarding everyone else’s vote. Since Obama and Clinton are neck-and-neck, and Ohio and Texas could deal a fatal blow to the Clinton campaign, doesn’t that make every other state’s vote meaningless? The primary season drags on for such an excruciatingly long time that candidates are forced to run in each and every state. If no clear-cut winner emerges, then the primary held in that state didn’t really do anything of value.
Again, that is more of a problem with the primary process itself, but the media can’t help but sit back and buy into it and, in turn, forcing us to buy into it as well.
But hey, at least Ohio and Texas benefit. They may end up picking who the Democratic nominee will be (as an aside, that may shatter the world record for irony as the chances of either Texas or Ohio voting Democratic in the November election is about as likely as John McCain picking Rush Limabugh to be his running mate).
And even if they don’t, we’ll just pack it in and hope the next state can make up our minds for us.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Get momentum or die
You have to sit back in awe at an election process that values momentum as high as anything else. That seems to be the media’s latest baby.
Barack Obama is now the front runner to be the Democratic nominee. Is it because he connects with the voters? No. That he is running on a campaign of unity and change? Hardly. Is it even because he has more votes? Heck, what are votes? We count delegates.
Obama is in front because he has momentum. It’s true. Hillary isn’t fighting against his policies or his speeches. She is fighting against his momentum.
It amazes me how little attention is focused on the candidate’s actual issues. Questions that you would think would be focused on, say, why one candidate feels their foreign or economic policies are superior to the other, are instead geared towards things that won’t matter come late November.
Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton’s Iraq policy, for instance, is of great interest to me. That will affect me if one of them becomes our next president. Their momentum, or lack thereof, however, will cease to matter in a few short months.
I can’t figure out this obsession the media has with momentum. Maybe because it’s an easier story to tell or write - I’m not sure. One thing that is certain, however, is that I won’t be voting based on momentum. I will be voting based on issues and policy. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to focus on that.
Barack Obama is now the front runner to be the Democratic nominee. Is it because he connects with the voters? No. That he is running on a campaign of unity and change? Hardly. Is it even because he has more votes? Heck, what are votes? We count delegates.
Obama is in front because he has momentum. It’s true. Hillary isn’t fighting against his policies or his speeches. She is fighting against his momentum.
It amazes me how little attention is focused on the candidate’s actual issues. Questions that you would think would be focused on, say, why one candidate feels their foreign or economic policies are superior to the other, are instead geared towards things that won’t matter come late November.
Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton’s Iraq policy, for instance, is of great interest to me. That will affect me if one of them becomes our next president. Their momentum, or lack thereof, however, will cease to matter in a few short months.
I can’t figure out this obsession the media has with momentum. Maybe because it’s an easier story to tell or write - I’m not sure. One thing that is certain, however, is that I won’t be voting based on momentum. I will be voting based on issues and policy. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to focus on that.
Here are your choices
What is with this obsession that the media has with picking its political darlings? Its as though they think we, the people, can only handle so many candidates at a time. At the beginning of the primaries, there were only two Democrats (Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton) and three Republicans (John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney) that were given any credibility by the media.
John Edwards? Forget it. His wife has cancer.
Ron Paul? Forget it. He’s too loopy.
It seemed to only get worse as the process dragged on. Dennis Kucinich was denied his right to simply debate the issues. Yes, you read that right. In what is supposedly the land of the free, media giant MSNBC thought three Democrats debating would be too much for our little minds to handle.
On the Republican side, the race appeared to be over once Mitt Romney dropped out. Never mind the fact that Mike Huckabee was still campaigning and heavily intent on continuing his fight for the party’s nomination. The media didn’t think he had a shot, so we weren’t allowed to either.
On the Democrat side, we’re down to two. Lucky for us, the media is allowing us to choose between the two. That is unless, of course, we are unable to make up our minds and we have to let the super delegates tell us who we are to vote for in November.
John Edwards? Forget it. His wife has cancer.
Ron Paul? Forget it. He’s too loopy.
It seemed to only get worse as the process dragged on. Dennis Kucinich was denied his right to simply debate the issues. Yes, you read that right. In what is supposedly the land of the free, media giant MSNBC thought three Democrats debating would be too much for our little minds to handle.
On the Republican side, the race appeared to be over once Mitt Romney dropped out. Never mind the fact that Mike Huckabee was still campaigning and heavily intent on continuing his fight for the party’s nomination. The media didn’t think he had a shot, so we weren’t allowed to either.
On the Democrat side, we’re down to two. Lucky for us, the media is allowing us to choose between the two. That is unless, of course, we are unable to make up our minds and we have to let the super delegates tell us who we are to vote for in November.
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