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Two small, homogenous, mostly rural states have now voted.
Are there more surprises to come or do we now know the shape the race will take?
Do Iowa and NH play too big a role in our selection of presidents?
My only advice is to vote for the one who seems less invested in themselves and more interested in understanding the impact of their actions on others generally. And on the country.
Since it sounds like you are also resigned to the high likelihood that the presidency will go to a Democrat, I advise you to remember how partisan the 90's became. If you favor the Republicans merely as a party or as a political force, I think supporting Hillary is fine because they understand how to push her buttons, they understand how to rally their base against her if she steps "out of line", they understand the Clintons' personal flaws of character and judgment. If you favor a more independent direction for the country, led by one who can work across party lines not just when it advances his career, but on a more regular basis because he understands how to engage the Republicans and can respect their positions intellectually, then I'd say now is the time to start supporting Obama.
I think either way the Republicans will get a lot of mileage out of the next Democratic president. The question is whether they will get that mileage in a way that merely advances their political power by re-igniting the hatred in our political discourse or whether they get someone who actually engages their positions constructively.
user -
1/13/2008
Well, I guess the easiest way to break it down depends on making sure that a distinction is made between the primaries and the general elections.
What could happen in the general election is hard to know, because we don't know who either side will provide. Either Hillary or Obama for the Dems, and while McCain looks like the sane voter's choice for Republicans, while including consideration of Huckabee or Romney as part of the sane /better's/ choice, it's still anyone's guess. The point to keep in mind, though, is that with the current administration's approval ratings (or lack thereof) it's almost impossible to envision them getting another turn - if history is any guide, that is. I think Obama offers enough different variables to his message to give them a run for their money, however, whereas with Hillary I think they will try to go as negative as they can against her talent for polarization. But she can be pretty adept at turning that around, too, as we've seen.
As for the primaries, what I've seen is that most Democrats want someone whom they see as "electable", but I think that is a memetic for the kind of broader political power that they can't distill into machine-based versus inspiration-based portions. If Hillary keeps scoring primary victories, then she gets the nomination, and Democrats will stand by their Electable One, her current lethargy on winning delegates notwithstanding.
But I do think that the Republicans will find it easier to keep her "in check" politically. They remember how to play politics with her - the way her husband established it was to be done a decade ago. They were prescient enough in figuring out how to get cozy with her. Hope that makes her perception of winning the admiration of Hugh Rodham proud!
I am well aware of the generational split - (which applies to younger females as much as it does generally) between Obama's hope and Clinton's "inevitability"/"experience"/"ceiling smashing" smorgasbord. But I do think this will dissipate the more credible Hillary appears as a front-runner. Young women will not feel dismayed to go with Hillary as her machine and dirty tricks, under the radar screen of their selective sense of concern for the state of American government, smashes him to bits. In the end, more of them will care more about the social issues either of them promise than the fact that he can win the respect of Republicans intellectually and is more flexible in how he goes about achieving his goals. Score another one for the stability of the dysfunctional American system. Older, Republican women will likely stand by their man of the GOP nomination. Younger Republican women might break for Clinton, though - not that I'm sure the latter is all that politically meaningful a demographic.
I see a hard time for independents breaking for the Republican candidate.
Yes, thanks for the dialog. I enjoyed it.
Nancy Lowell -
1/13/2008
The surprising turn of events in New Hampshire told me two things: 1. The media got too far ahead of themselves and: 2. I really don't know who I will vote for now, because it is my theory that we are going to have a Democrat this time come h--- or high-water and I can't see myself voting for either of these people. N.J. Lowell
Voter -
1/13/2008
I understand why you believe Obama might be a transformative figure as President while Hillary Clinton mostly likely would not.
I think it is far too early to call this thing one way or another for either party. For one thing, it is very hard to predict how women will vote, New Hampshire notwithstanding. The tears, the "iron my shirt" stunt, and Obama's fumbled answer all hit at once. Who knows what will be making the news in the month up to super Tuesday.
Didn't Ann Coulter once say that this country would be better off if women were not allowed to vote, that Republicans would have won every election since 1950, except 1964, if only men had been allowed to vote? Yeah, I know, she says silly, inflammatory things to sell books or whatever. The point is, women do vote and this time around, candidates have to take that into account in tapping into the zeitgeist, and it is hard to tell how women voters will go.
Among Democrats, "post-feminist" women -- young female voters -- seem split. Some say, vote for Hillary, it would be great to have a woman as President. Other young women counter that with, no, that's inherently sexist, we're beyond that, decide who can serve the country best, regardless of gender. As you know, Obama drew many young voters in Iowa and also did well among them in New Hampshire, although the college vote did not turn out for him in the numbers it did in Iowa.
Of course, you have people of both genders supporting candidates across the spectrum. John Dean argues that Republicans don't govern, they rule. There are men and women alike who are comfortable with that. Dean describes what he calls "authoritarian conservatives," people who he describes as "compliant to the wishes of their leaders." The group he describes includes both men and women.
On the other side, there are men and women alike both vote for progressives. And then there are the independents, unaffiliated with either party, people who in open primaries can affect the outcome.
On the Democratic side, it will come down to who appeals best to the largest number of people. In recenbt general elections, young, unmarried women tend to lean Democrat, married women with children have voted more for Republicans in recent years. I'm curious to see how those numbers come out in 2008, it's hard to rely on conventional wisdom this time around, things are very unettled.
It's not just the "angry white man" who is frustrated and uneasy this time around, many people say the country is on the wrong track. The polls I've seen show them expressing concern about the economy, health care, Iraq. Just this evening, ABC news reported a poll which showed the economy and Iraq having nearly equal numbers in a poll of issues that most concern voters.
Again, thanks for your very interesting posts.
user -
1/12/2008
Well, I guess the question then becomes what the United States will have to cheer over in a Clinton Presidency. What does she connect with? It won't a sense of American triumphalism.
I believe she will usher in, in many ways, the most conservative administration out of all the front-runners. She has "found her voice" (at sixty years of age), and that is that women should sympathize with her having to compete on an even playing field with men, the way men already have always had do with each other since the dawn of politics. Since men cannot be - and therefore, cannot sympathize with - a woman feeling out of sorts for having to defend her character and credentials against those of other men, they will substitute the only equivalent emotion they can legitimize: Pity. So when you combine the fear that she inspires, in Republicans for her political power generally and in Democrats for her machine-like control of their party and the old, dysfunctional style of politics that she embodies, with pity, you get the most conservative view of a female candidate in U.S. politics in the modern age. But hey, at least she didn't try to sell us on being hopeful!
Her foreign policy stances will likely be somewhat hawkish, if less brash than Bush's, and her domestic policy stances will likely be a function of her psychological and political machines - condescending big-government fixes for whichever perceived underclasses she defines, according to whatever top-down social and economic re-ordering she sees as most "just". I somehow doubt that she will see genocide (in Darfur, for instance) in the same way that Obama campaign adviser Samantha Power sees it. So, so much for a clear and authentic understanding of what it means to have a progressive moral compass.
This is not a transformative agenda for America in the 21st-century. But I am convinced that with Clinton's winning mobilization of the sympathy/pity vote, her "electability", and therefore, her "inevitability" - (the most conservative political neologisms I've ever heard) - will re-enter the equation. Her machine is back in full gear. The endorsements by other politicians of Obama reek of the same sense of desperation emitted by the political endorsements of John Kerry back in 2004. And Obama, with the help of some truly macchiavellian pandering to bigotry on the part of the Clinton campaign and other negative deluges, will be put out of commission.
And that last bit is another strike against her decidedly un-progressive nature. If you are pandering to bigotry - ("Hussein"/"Cocaine" Obama) - then you are legitimizing it. She is taking the country backwards instead of forward. Crystallizing stereotypes of gender and race instead of demolishing them. But as I said, America doesn't seem ready for a transformative experience. And it's probably in our conservative nature to fear transformative experiences generally in the first place. No matter how essential some of us might see them as being to the "American Dream" narrative in the first place. I guess no matter how unwitting Americans are, they never could have figured that Hillary would have been their candidate for making this country as unhospitable to progress as she seems poised to make it.
Voter -
1/12/2008
Interesting points, indeed. You note that "the drive to identify with national political leaders came about with Reagan, and his emphasis on 'message.'" The Reagan phenomenon is interesting. I previously mentioned the extent to which some voters' sense of self is intertwined with the party or politician they support. That can be based on a positive emotion ("if my guy wins, the country will be guided along the right path, the future may be brighter") or negative ("I hate (or resent or fear) people who vote the other way, they are responsible for what has gone wrong with our country (or my life) -- if "we" can crush them, they will be weakened and made ineffectual.") It's not unrelated to the way some people relate to sports teams.
Some people live and die, psychologically speaking, by the fortunes of the sports teams they follow. It's almost as if victories by the team put soothing ointments on the wounds suffered by the fan in daily life, be it at work or at home. He feels helpless to fix or escape from what ails him on the job -- a boss or co-workers he doesn't get along with; low pay, lack of status; fears about competition by "others;" a nagging sense that the world he lives in is more complicated and confusing and less fulfilling than that his father and grandfather lived in. Linking his sense of self to the team's fortunes makes his world seem brighter -- if they win, of course. It gives him an emotional connection to a winner. Others escape their daily cares by immersing themselves in other distractions (soap operas, reality tv, etc.)
Remember the "Miracle on Ice" win by the U.S. hockey team over the Soviet team to win the gold at the 1980 Olympics? The shouts of USA!! USA!! and the tumultuous welcome-home given Mike Eruzione, Jim Craig, and the other players expressed more than just pride at the win by a national team. It was a shout of triumph after the 1970s, a long, dispiriting period that saw Vietnam and Watergate, then the "malaise" of the Carter years, and the Iran hostage crisis.
Reagan and his team tapped into that need for triumphalism, for something to cheer about. During the campaign, Reagan talked about America's greatness and its potential in a way that made some voters believe he was the man to help the nation put the 1970s behind it. The positive message was very appealing to many voters.
user -
1/12/2008
Yes. I did intend to type Bernstein. Thanks for the correction.
user -
1/12/2008
Thanks for your comments as well, Voter. I suppose in answer to your concern for how we can tell if the emotions are real - well, as an Obama supporter, I'd like to see his candidacy as a huge part of that! A more honest political approach and getting away from intimidating machine-led, focus-group pandering politics. His push for injecting more honesty into the political process itself pretty much counts for the largest measure of his appeal. So, as you can see, this need among the electorate counts for a lot, and it can be addressed beyond just the culture itself and within the political culture.
Second, with blogs, people have the opportunity to comment more, to comment more frequently, to create long discussion "threads", and invite more back-and-forth. In getting more out there in a way that safely makes the personal impersonal, I think we come closer to creating the incentive for a more honest, and more self-inquiry driven dialectic culturally.
I think the drive to identify with national political leaders came about with Reagan, and his emphasis on "message." It was already prominent by the time all the imperfect and fun-lovin' guys out there told us how much they identified w/that monstrously flawed but fun-lovin' good ole Billy Clinton. I think this Reagan was a pivotal figure in a long evolution of using political speech conveyed over mass media to begin to connect better and more personally with voters - starting w/FDR and weaving a bit through the charisma of JFK - and reaching a zenith of simultaneous connection and poignant honesty with his brother Robert Francis - the nearest equivalent 20th century American politics came to a philosopher-king. I see Obama as having the potential to get us back on track with that tremendous tradition.
I think that as long as we can come closer to a more honest political dialectic, then people will become more forgiving about personal differences and more accepting of their own identities rather than focusing on the complex matrices of those of their politicians. An honest personality is a simpler one, in any event. It's the triangulating that makes many of these people too complex, and often pushing them to the borders of psychopathology. That can't be a tenable trajectory, for us in the long run - no matter how much we expect of our politicians.
Voter -
1/11/2008
Thanks for the explanation, I have a much better understanding than I did before of what you meant by your comments about Sen. Clinton and about the new media. I have read some books about her but not (yet) the one by Carl Bernstein (you said Woodward but I think you intended to type Bernstein).
Newspapers aren't very well suited to doing in-depth profiles of candidates. Their readers are too varied in what they want. Some don't have the patience to drill down very far. I've seen some newspaper readers complain about feature length articles, saying they don't want to read anything that goes beyond a column or two.
For a politician with a complicated past, it's also hard to do a profile that critics and supporters alike will accept as authoritative or admit is objective. There are an awful lot of barriers and defense mechanisms to get through to reach a wide number of reasons.
You make some good points about emotion in politics, both as it affects candidates and voters. I previously mentioned my guess that some women were motivated to vote for Sen. Clinton because the "iron my shirt" stunt angered them. (After I posted that, I later saw that some Clinton operatives pointed to the same thing so I'm not the only one who has picked up on that.) Elsewhere, I mentioned the "angry white man" phenomenon of the 1990s.
The role of emotion (including anger) in politics is complicated since people won't always admit to it. It is worth addressing. But how? We all like to view ourselves as objective assessors of events who act reasonably and fairly in every instance. But do we really?
Exit polls and surveys give some clues as to how people feel. Letters to the editor are hard to assess because you don't know how representative they are and what the editors are declining to print. Blogs and the comments they draw are also can be tricky to assess. I saw a newspaper columnist write recently that he thought the people who comment on his newspaper's message boards were not representative of the general population. He thought they come from the same pool of people who call in to radio shows. I don't know if that is true, I don't know if there are studies on that.
I do get the sense that for some who comment on news and other sites, the politician they support has become almost a surrogate for themselves. It almost feels as if for some people, the candidate or the party is a key part of their own identity. Perhaps that partly explains the surprising levels of anger and other (perhaps compensatory) emotions that surround some political discussions.
I don't know how else to explain the intense personal loyalty some people feel to politicians. Some even react as if the slightest criticism of the politician diminishes themselves in some way. Perhaps that is why one sees intense solidarity and groupthink on some message boards. In some situations, it becomes impossible to raise questions, apparently because no chink in the armor is allowed. Far from building confidence in the politician defended, however, for me that brings up an image from the Wizard of Oz (what exactly is behind that curtain, anyway?)
Good biographers and historians try to lift that curtain but I don't think all voters want that. How voters react may depend on how their political identity and personal loyalty to a politician is woven into the fabric of their lives. I suspect that the more detached they are, and the more they have thought about and come to an understanding of the basis for their political leanings, the more likely they are to read biographies and to consider fairly the available critical analysis and profiles of candidates.
user -
1/11/2008
I'd like to just take a quick opportunity to be perfectly clear on what I mean by the Rodham family dynamics. If you think that Hillary's persona and political character are built around something other than trying to win the respect of her harsh, Republican father, I think you're being naive. But what I can't stand is the fact that the "grown-up" Hillary has gone about this by never missing an opportunity at winning or massively attracting the political respect (or fear, or whatever) of Republicans, even if this never extends to an interest in gaining their respect on an intellectual level. Obama, who was at the very conservative University of Chicago, knows how to win their respect on an intellectual level. I think that this consideration is very important in getting us beyond the extraordinarily bitter partisan divides that Hillary probably doesn't know enough to care to do anything about but exacerbate them.
But the thing is this. Hugh Rodham is dead. Her need to please him isn't as important as the need others have for a more rationally based sense of national idealism, or for standing on their own - outside of the shadows of their psychological bugbears. Perhaps others disagree, though.
user -
1/11/2008
Voter, I agree that stunts by radio guys that you mentioned were stupid - and sexist, but the gender dynamic is not settled. That card is being played much more handily by Clinton herself, and Obama's "you're likeable enough" response to her could be easily seen as appropriately reflecting back her own helplessly schoolgirlish, gushing admiration to him when the moderator asked a question about it in light of her own lack of likeability - which she went beyond self-deprecating in answering for. So much for schoolgirls "playing dumb" to the cute boy in class.
Read Bob Woodward's book. I understand some people hate having to figure out the personalities of these people, but the frankly bizarre gender dynamics - as well as the bizarre personality dynamics in themselves - in the dysfunctional Rodham family were too influential for her to overcome in a psychologically healthy way. They are a subset of a dynamic that reflects the cultural baggage that many voters, such as myself personally, never had to overcome, and which I, for one - as an independent who naturally shies away from group and identity politics - resent the hell out of having to answer for on behalf of my retrograde and less curious, less open-minded - but no less critical - countrymen and countrywomen.
Now, as for the "new media" as scientific and honest - I guess I'm defending their much bashed comfort with scientific polling moreso than anything else. The media's job is not to resolve... well, much of anything, but rather to inform. Science can't tell us _definitively_ that humans evolved from ape-like ancestors either, but it would be silly to not rely on that idea. And when the evidence changes, my feelings on that will as well. But it's not wrong to go on the best information available at the time. If something changes, or was left unanswered in the surveys, then so be it.
The newer media allows for more emotions and impressions to be disseminated more quickly, and I guess on that count, I take the more is better approach. I don't need to be left in the dark about what many people feel and believe due to a disinterest in conformity to network broadcasting standards or a lack of access to politically correct editors designed to control their expression in a way deemed manageable by the old media.
More and more psychologists and business school professors are warning about the shortsightedness of neglecting an acknowledgment of the primary role of emotion as a motivator in shaping people's lives. We can't just push it under the rug and pretend it doesn't exist - even when we draw distinctions between objective observations and subjective ones. I'd just like us to have it less artificially regulated and released in the bite-sized segments of culturally "appropriate" expressions - i.e. in the manner in which the old media hierarchy was so tremendously successful at doing.
Voter -
1/10/2008
Apologies for the browser cache glitch which led to the multiple posting of the same post (editor, delete the repeat posts from me from between 6 and 6:30 -- if you see see this, TIA).
Here are the compressed URLs for the CNN exit poll data that I mentioned above
I think the poster to whom you referred noticed that you were addressing the quality of media coverage and did his own riff on a different but related issue. I saw his post as his going off on a tangent to decry the inability of the “new media,” which he described as scientific and honest, to change public perception of Sen. Clinton’s tears to align with his perception of them. I took it to mean that in his view, the old media were fooled by the tears story, too bad the new media couldn’t come through. Why he has more faith in “new media” than “old media,” I don’t know.
Also, as I noted in my earlier post, how people vote sometimes is affected by their aspirations or their fears or their resentments (think the “angry white male” voter who got so much attention in the 1990s). Exit polls reveal that in the classic beer drinker v. wine drinker split in New Hampshire, Sen. Clinton got more of the beer drinkers’ votes and Sen. Obama more of the wine drinkers’ votes. Sen. Clinton won over female voters with less education, what someone called the “waitress mom” vote. (CNN has some interesting exit poll data for the Democrats and Republicans on its site. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#val=NHDEM
) Women with more education went more for Sen. Obama.
Would more in-depth coverage of issues by the print media, of the type you and many others yearn for, have affected that? I doubt it. “Waitress moms” don’t have much time to read newspapers or sit in front of the tv watching experts discuss the candidates. Real life gets in the way. Most of their time and energy goes into an exhausting round of earning a living and taking care of household duties.
Also, like it or not, the media is market driven. News outlets have to turn a profit. We get personality-driven coverage and horse race stories because the PTB believe that is what will sell newspapers or draw viewers. If they thought long, in depth stories on issues and positions would sell, that’s what they would give us. As long as they think that approach is a loser financially, we won’t get it, no matter how much we complain. It’s the same reason cable tv airs shows such as Nancy Grace. Marketing analysts have decided from studying ratings and demographics that that is what viewers want. People drawn to the sober presentation of facts, not speculation or sensationalism, are in the minority.
Voter -
1/10/2008
I think the poster to whom you referred noticed that you were addressing the quality of media coverage and did his own riff on a different but related issue. I saw his post as his going off on a tangent to decry the inability of the “new media,” which he described as scientific and honest, to change public perception of Sen. Clinton’s tears to align with his perception of them. I took it to mean that in his view, the old media were fooled by the tears story, too bad the new media couldn’t come through. Why he has more faith in “new media” than “old media,” I don’t know.
Also, as I noted in my earlier post, how people vote sometimes is affected by their aspirations or their fears or their resentments (think the “angry white male” voter who got so much attention in the 1990s). Exit polls reveal that in the classic beer drinker v. wine drinker split in New Hampshire, Sen. Clinton got more of the beer drinkers’ votes and Sen. Obama more of the wine drinkers’ votes. Sen. Clinton won over female voters with less education, what someone called the “waitress mom” vote. (CNN has some interesting exit poll data for the Democrats and Republicans on its site. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#val=NHDEM
) Women with more education went more for Sen. Obama.
Would more in-depth coverage of issues by the print media, of the type you and many others yearn for, have affected that? I doubt it. “Waitress moms” don’t have much time to read newspapers or sit in front of the tv watching experts discuss the candidates. Real life gets in the way. Most of their time and energy goes into an exhausting round of earning a living and taking care of household duties.
Also, like it or not, the media is market driven. News outlets have to turn a profit. We get personality-driven coverage and horse race stories because the PTB believe that is what will sell newspapers or draw viewers. If they thought long, in depth stories on issues and positions would sell, that’s what they would give us. As long as they think that approach is a loser financially, we won’t get it, no matter how much we complain. It’s the same reason cable tv airs shows such as Nancy Grace. Marketing analysts have decided from studying ratings and demographics that that is what viewers want. People drawn to the sober presentation of facts, not speculation or sensationalism, are in the minority.
Voter -
1/10/2008
I think the poster to whom you referred noticed that you were addressing the quality of media coverage and did his own riff on a different but related issue. I saw his post as his going off on a tangent to decry the inability of the “new media,” which he described as scientific and honest, to change public perception of Sen. Clinton’s tears to align with his perception of them. I took it to mean that in his view, the old media were fooled by the tears story, too bad the new media couldn’t come through. Why he has more faith in “new media” than “old media,” I don’t know.
Also, as I noted in my earlier post, how people vote sometimes is affected by their aspirations or their fears or their resentments (think the “angry white male” voter who got so much attention in the 1990s). Exit polls reveal that in the classic beer drinker v. wine drinker split in New Hampshire, Sen. Clinton got more of the beer drinkers’ votes and Sen. Obama more of the wine drinkers’ votes. Sen. Clinton won over female voters with less education, what someone called the “waitress mom” vote. (CNN has some interesting exit poll data for the Democrats and Republicans on its site. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#val=NHDEM
) Women with more education went more for Sen. Obama.
Would more in-depth coverage of issues by the print media, of the type you and many others yearn for, have affected that? I doubt it. “Waitress moms” don’t have much time to read newspapers or sit in front of the tv watching experts discuss the candidates. Real life gets in the way. Most of their time and energy goes into an exhausting round of earning a living and taking care of household duties.
Also, like it or not, the media is market driven. News outlets have to turn a profit. We get personality-driven coverage and horse race stories because the PTB believe that is what will sell newspapers or draw viewers. If they thought long, in depth stories on issues and positions would sell, that’s what they would give us. As long as they think that approach is a loser financially, we won’t get it, no matter how much we complain. It’s the same reason cable tv airs shows such as Nancy Grace. Marketing analysts have decided from studying ratings and demographics that that is what viewers want. People drawn to the sober presentation of facts, not speculation or sensationalism, are in the minority.
Voter -
1/10/2008
I think the poster to whom you referred noticed that you were addressing the quality of media coverage and did his own riff on a different but related issue. I saw his post as his going off on a tangent to decry the inability of the “new media,” which he described as scientific and honest, to change public perception of Sen. Clinton’s tears to align with his perception of them. I took it to mean that in his view, the old media were fooled by the tears story, too bad the new media couldn’t come through. Why he has more faith in “new media” than “old media,” I don’t know.
Also, as I noted in my earlier post, how people vote sometimes is affected by their aspirations or their fears or their resentments (think the “angry white male” voter who got so much attention in the 1990s). Exit polls reveal that in the classic beer drinker v. wine drinker split in New Hampshire, Sen. Clinton got more of the beer drinkers’ votes and Sen. Obama more of the wine drinkers’ votes. Sen. Clinton won over female voters with less education, what someone called the “waitress mom” vote. (CNN has some interesting exit poll data for the Democrats and Republicans on its site. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#val=NHDEM
) Women with more education went more for Sen. Obama.
Would more in-depth coverage of issues by the print media, of the type you and many others yearn for, have affected that? I doubt it. “Waitress moms” don’t have much time to read newspapers or sit in front of the tv watching experts discuss the candidates. Real life gets in the way. Most of their time and energy goes into an exhausting round of earning a living and taking care of household duties.
Also, like it or not, the media is market driven. News outlets have to turn a profit. We get personality-driven coverage and horse race stories because the PTB believe that is what will sell newspapers or draw viewers. If they thought long, in depth stories on issues and positions would sell, that’s what they would give us. As long as they think that approach is a loser financially, we won’t get it, no matter how much we complain. It’s the same reason cable tv airs shows such as Nancy Grace. Marketing analysts have decided from studying ratings and demographics that that is what viewers want. People drawn to the sober presentation of facts, not speculation or sensationalism, are in the minority.
To the poster of #117747, you misread my posting entirely. Why you are ranting about Hillary I do not know.
Inadvertently, though, you struck upon one of my points-- the media should quit trying to predict the future. No more chatter about groundswells, campaigns that are flagging, candidates being left for dead, etc. Stop the horse race journalism and reduce coverage to materials that are useful to voters in making an intelligent choice.
Voter -
1/10/2008
Old or new, the whole media issue is overblown. I think there's more to the Clinton win than the video clip of her tearing up when she said she believed that she had so much to contribute in working on issues of importance to the nation. In addition to considering positions taken by candidates, some people, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, also vote based, in vague ways, on their personal resentments, thwarted aspirations, challenges faced during their own lifetimes, and so forth.
The silly stunt by the radio station in New Hampshire, in which the guys held up signs with and yelled "iron my shirt" at Sen. Clinton didn't take that into account. The stunt seems to have backfired as it may have motivated more women voters to vote for Sen. Clinton. If it didn't tip some undecideds her way, I would bet it at least reinforced the determination of those who support her to vote for her.
Karl Rove believes that Obama's "you're likeable enough" response to her during Saturday's debate probably helped her as well.
Why do you characterize the "new media" as scientific and honest? Can you give any examples of where new media, more so than old, settled any substantive issues of fact definitively, in such a way that people from the right and the left, and not just those already in the choir, both accepted the outcome?
Many blogs veer unwittingly into soap opera, I've seen as much hysterics and raw emotion among bloggers and the people who comment on their posts (maybe even more) as any viewer would see on a tv daytime serial.
user -
1/10/2008
The media can't predict the future, Kevin, and it wouldn't have predicted that even Hillary would be so egomaniacal as to weepingly instruct us into swallowing the idea that her own, personal loss should be seen as the country's loss - to a chorus of horrifyingly sympathetic ignorance. Oh well, it was New Hampshire after all - the same state that brought Patrick Buchanan all the glory he reveled in back in 1996.
In any event, the media also provides the same video clips that show less ignorant voters the authenticity that we see in other candidates. This was just a ploy that Hillary worked in the same way that the "old media" would have dug back when that was their biggest outlet for such overtly sentimental trash. Much like the way that John Kerry pretended to be sympathetic to Dick Cheney's gay daughter. Count on the old media to provide the outlet for pulling off a last-minute performance to change things up like this. Even when it didn't work for them anyway.
There's nothing wrong with the new media - in all their scientific zeal for numbers, tracking, vigorous discourse and honesty - not catching the kind of dishonest trick that would have played out much better in a moribund medium that's more prone to conveying those sorts of things. As long as televised soap operas exist...
bgaston -
1/9/2008
The same people who report on Britney and Paris are reporting on this election. What do you expect?
Glenn Rodden -
1/9/2008
I will help you pack.
HNN -
1/9/2008
Until the other day, when the NYT ran a long article about Huckabee's Fair Tax proposal, how many readers understood that he favors abolishing the IRS and social security? Not many, I'd bet. And how many non-NYT readers know this even now?
HNN -
1/9/2008
Amen!
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1/9/2008
Hard to say how the war is going to play out as an issue. Polls continue to show that more people believe that it was a mistake to have gone to war in Iraq than not. The polls I've seen suggest that some voters believe the U.S. military has held up its end well -- and there's a sigh of relief that violence is down -- but that its members should not have been asked to shoulder that mission in the first place. For such voters, the candidates will have to walk a tightrope on the war. Given the mixed feelings among the public (at least as reflected in polls), sheer bluster (denying the success of the surge on the one hand, or denying the depth of the political problems within Iraq on the other) won't work. And what is effective in appealing to the base during primary season won't necessarily work when it comes time for the general election. It's an issue that requires some skill in order to work to a candidate's advantage. That goes for both parties.
Jo Ann Kay McNamara -
1/9/2008
If we substituted NY and CA as the first two primaries, we would get the same results: months of drivel about local campaigning and endless polls. For a year we have been exposed to non-stop coverage and there has been no substantive debate on issues or realistic program for the Democratic party produced. No one has even started to expose the criminality of the present regime and only Kucinich has made an effort to address it. What is the point of all these empty political calories?
Kevin R Kosar -
1/9/2008
Much of the media said that Obama was rising, Clinton falling, McCain a goner, etc. On Monday, the Washington Post even considered whether the Iowa results might force Clinton to quit the race. Rather than help voters choose by providing good information on candidate's records, competences, and policy proposals, the media mostly dishes tales of a weeping Hillary and a guitar-playing Huckabee, and agonizes over what the latest polls indicate. So much manpower and money spent by media companies, yet so little useful information conveyed.
Lawrence Brooks Hughes -
1/9/2008
I think the 60 degree weather brought out a lot of older people for Mrs. Clinton, as well as her artful voice-breaking cry on TV yesterday. Unlike Iowa, this tactic won her the female vote in NH. She also had very good luck with the weather, or would have lost. And many voters lied to the exit-poll takers about having voted for Obama, which was interesting.
McCain was helped enormously by crossovers, as expected. He can't win a Republican primary, nor get the Republican nomination, because he is a liberal now. Romney is probably eliminated, but not because he wouldn't have delivered the passports on time--he's obviously the best administrator of the bunch--but just because he seems a little oily, too good-looking, too glib, too dull, too smart, too perfect, too self-centered, etc. Being too rich helps him more than it hurts him.
Huck did well, even if his affinity for the teachers' unions is catching up to him. He has other liberal tendencies, too, but his stellar personality takes him far. He has a very realistic chance now to get the nomination, and might win in Michigan on Jan. 15, where Romney could be second and McCain third.
Thompson is toast, and never was presidential material. Forget Fred.
Huckabee will probably take South Carolina, and Obama will, too. Maybe Hillary and Romney win in Nevada. The GOP is down to Rudy and Huck for all the cookies. Rudy may scoop up Florida --probably will-- and take several more states after that, if he can gather some money. The fact is Republicans find a little something wrong with all of their candidates this time, but the two with the best personalities, Huck and Rudy, have emerged, fortunately, with Giuliani getting a slight edge because he is very sound on the war. He will contend in several Eastern states, and get votes from many with vowels on the end of their name. Whichever gets nominated should have a terrific chance in November, because (A) the war is finally going quite well; (B) Mrs. Clinton and Obama will badly beat each other up for several months, with no shortage of material; and (C) voter fatigue will set in with Clinton and Obama--it has already, bigtime. We have never had a campaign lasting as long as this one. That gives some advantage to a fresh face at the end like Rudy. I believe Rudy had a good night in New Hampshire, notwithstanding his 9 point showing. He's fortunate two different GOP opponents won in Iowa and NH, with the third second both places, i.e., none has strong momentum.
Jon Marte -
1/9/2008
That America (or at least its news media) is crazy for elections. It's gone from being a national sport to being a national obsession.
Have candidates ever made elaborate concession speeches after finishing second in a primary? That's a serious question, btw.
Ginidir Marshall -
1/9/2008
Good riddance to you. Your comments on Obama's "breeding" reflect far more on your utter lack thereof than any ridiculous babble you spew about Senator Obama. Clearly, racial slurs are for the "un-American types" such as you are.
Good luck to the unfortunate country you choose to migrate to.
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1/8/2008
Obama winning Iowa and if he wins NH proves that the American people are even more stupid than previously believed! After dealing with 2 terms of the moron George Bush, now they are throwing their brains out the window by supporting this piece of crap fake! Nothing he says has any ring of truth. He is seeing himself as the second coming the way he is acting and he has the idiots buysing into is act! I've always wanted to try living in another country. If that half breed son of an African native that lived in mud huts becomes our president, I will get the chance. (I will not be moving to Kenya)! Wake up American before it's too late.
