I don't know how many people read the comments, so I wanted to do a fresh post rather than respond in the comments to a few things that Kevin and Ty said. Of course, I'm not sure many people read the blog overall, but I think this is an interesting debate. This post will be written as a response to what they said.
About the importance of Iowa in the primaries. I think that we're in agreement that whoever wins in Iowa gets a huge boost in media attention, even placing relatively high like Dean did in 2004 can make the media treat someone like a serious candidate. The argument you guys seem to be making is that this is overall beneficial, since it can raise a candidate who may otherwise have been written off to a higher prominence. It can level the playing field between candidates that have a lot of financial support and others that may be a better overall candidate. And I can see where you're coming from, and it's a perfectly reasonable argument, but I think that what just happened in New Hampshire might be evidence of why I don't think the Iowa hype is a good thing.
After the Obama win in Iowa, he went from being regarded in the media as an underdog to being heralded as the reincarnation of JFK. It's hard to know whether the surge he got in polling in New Hampshire was an effect of the increased media support he received or a genuine change in people's attitudes towards his candidacy. When he lost New Hampshire by a few points despite being up almost double digits in the polls I think we got our answer.
Now I completely support Obama, I would like to see him as our next president, so it's hard for me to argue that the media boost he got after Iowa was a bad thing. I think he should have been regarded as a much stronger candidate beforehand. But my point is that different electorates obviously would elect, and much prefer, different candidates, and the republican primary race makes that point starkly clear. So far three different candidates have won a state in the race. McCain won New Hampshire, Romney won Wyoming, Huckabee won Iowa. So obviously in a race that contested, there is no one candidate who deserves the kind of media bump awarded when a candidate wins Iowa.
In the recent case, the undeserved Iowa bump for Obama turned out to be as much a slam against Clinton as it was an increase in praise for Obama. The media likes a good narrative and hers was to be written as the precipitous collapse of a political powerhouse, a campaign that seemed as much an inevitability as an election. But her campaign was never an inevitability, and Obama's win in Iowa was not a momentous upset. Obama won Iowa because his support system in the state was huge, because his oratory skills are peerless, and because Iowans thought he would best help their state. New Hampshire selected Hillary for similar reasons. Or at least they should have. But with the tremendous amount of influence the media has over the way people vote, it's hard to ever be sure. Obama's bump in New Hampshire was likely the effect of a psychological effect where people tend to agree with the last one to speak in an argument or a debate. Or it could have just been people's tendency to agree with what they perceive to be the majority. My point is that any focus on any horse race aspect of a campaign leads people to vote irrationally. Rather than voting in their own self interest they vote according to who the media tells them is going to win. People like to back a winner because they like to be right. It's the reason that assholes in Arizona or Michigan right now are cheering for the Patriots. Nothing benefits them from it, and if the Patriots were 0-16 this season instead of 16-0, they wouldn't think twice about them.
I may have had more to say on the subject but I've lost my train of thought. It happens.
1 comment:
The media fucking pisses me off. On the Democratic side, there are three candidates who all have histories in the Senate, making their past actions directly comparable in the most convenient way (to a lesser extent Edwards/Obama since they never served together, I think). It would be work to start slogging through their records to make comparisons, but jesus christ, these people are supposedly professional journalists.
How often does this happen?? The debate last night was good in that it touched on a couple things like who had supported the bankruptcy bill, Yucca Mountain, etc. in their actual votes. I found that somewhat educational, but it barely skimmed the surface. What BETTER ways to compare candidates than what they have done in public office, and votes they have cast?
I'm not supporting Clinton because she has pissed me off a lot in the past. Before she decided to run for president, her voting record was far more conservative than it has been recently (relatively speaking). And much of the time when she supposedly "opposed" some Republican legislation, she would join the ball-less half or so of the Dems in voting for cloture, knowing full well that if cloture passed, the bill would pass.
Likewise, I'm supporting Obama because of his much more progressive voting record, including cloture votes. At least, based on how I remember perceiving his votes in comparison to Clinton's votes. Obviously my memory is imperfect, so gee, it sure would be nice to get some help from the FUCKING MEDIA.
But none of this is discussed in the media. It's all just a fucking game to them. A game for fun and profit, he-said-she-said-we-transcribe at best, a horse race at worst. And it makes for uninformed voters.
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