Monday, November 19, 2007

Forget advertising budgets; forget debates...

When the Mainstream Media has decided that the race is going to be between Clinton and Giuliani, should we even bother with the formality of primaries?

Edwards and Obama could strip naked and sing a duet and would only get a one sentence mention in an article on how mean the menfolk were being to poor Hils. Thompson could fill a stadium with thousands of chanting, underwear-flinging fans and Ron Paul could raise a bazillion dollars, and both events would be one paragraph footnotes in a TIME magazine whose cover story showed a pensive Rudy and asked "Is America's Mayor Ready To Be America's President?"


Edited to Add: "You can't spell Clinton without CNN." *Snerk!* Now that's funny.

2 comments:

The Armed Canadian said...

Except for the minor detail that the media as an entity can't vote in the primaries. Only its readers can.

And there are a lot of primary voters who I suspect aren't necessarily listening to the media. The folks who vote in the primaries tend to actually, you know, pay attention to candidate positions. I suspect their level of knowledge across the board is slightly above average as a whole. And given the intelligence of the average news pundit, that places them as Mensa members by comparison.

Thankfully, we don't live in a direct democracy. The media can crow all it likes. They aren't the ones who decide and I've found the voting public to be a wee bit smarter overall. Wouldn't be the first time the media blew it (Carter vs. Reagan anyone).

Rob K said...

Giuliani, Clinton, mainstream media -- all based in New York City. I think that about sums it up.