Horse Race to the White House
It’s surprising, the sheer amount of things you can learn just from watching cable news.
For instance, by simply leaving the TV on during dinner last week, you could have heard that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has opened up a huge lead in national polls, drawing the support of over half of all likely democratic voters. You no doubt would have been told that as a result of these polls, her rivals were now focusing their verbal attacks on her in an attempt to pare that margin and give their own numbers a boost. You also may have overheard that Mitt Romney was leading the Republican field in Iowa and New Hampshire; or that Ron Paul had set a record by raising $4 million from web donations in one day, a new record.
Further channel flipping would have allowed you to indulge in detailed analysis of the varying financial states of multiple campaigns, their every number broken down and poured over by hyperbolic news analysts. You could have listened those same analysts vociferously debate the most recent Gallup polls, though you may have wondered to what end. After all, numbers are numbers, no matter if you color them red or blue.
You might even have sat in rapt attention as a myriad of “political commentators” of varying levels of credibility argued over whether or not John McCain was still alive in South Carolina, or if Fred Thompson’s late entry into the race had hamstrung his campaign.
However, what you probably didn’t hear; and won’t hear much of in the coming months either, is any sort meaningful debate about actual Presidential policy. Oh, you’ll surely hear a little here and there; you can pretty much bank on Fox News beating their drums against “socialized medicine” for the next 14 months. And of course, there’s always time to debate the Iraq question; but you can be sure that that will be spoken of strictly in generalized abstractions.
Point being, you won’t find very much discussion about the key differences in what that the candidates actually stand for; or in other words, what actually matters. You’ll hear plenty about how much money they can raise and what their latest poll numbers are, but not much that will matter after inauguration day.
Somewhere along the road, the main-stream American media decided that showcasing the latest “favor-ability” ratings was a better way to report on elections than to talk about what the candidates were actually proposing. The onus is all on who is currently winning in the polls, not who should be or why.
As a result of this “horse-race” style coverage, we’ve entered into a self-sustaining downward spiral, in which the election campaign for President of the United States has devolved into nothing more than a pumped-up popularity contest. In other words, “American idol: White House Edition”.
Quick, what’s John McCain’s stance on health care? How does Hillary Clinton feel about free trade? What would John Edwards do about illegal immigration?
The vast majority of the voting public probably wouldn’t be able to give you the answers if the top of their heads. But thanks to inescapable, wall-to-wall coverage from major newspapers and TV stations, a much greater percentage would probably be able to tell you where they sit in the polls.
It’s not that people aren’t paying attention to the presidential primaries; in fact, the overwhelming amount of media coverage proves that news organizations know the public is interested. The problem is that they’re being fed the wrong information. Yet instead of getting useful analysis of policy proposals, they are instead receiving inane blather about who raised more money or who looked the most “Presidential” in the last debate.
This kind of reporting isn’t just faulty and wrongheaded; it is potentially harmful to our democratic institutions. If people are not aware of what a candidate stands for, then they won’t know what they’re voting for. They will end up making their choice on incomplete information, perhaps voting against their own interests without even knowing it.
This is what leads to people voting on things like “well, he seems like a nice person”; as opposed to voting on “well, he pledged not to raise my taxes” or “well, he said he won’t invade any more countries”.
How many people knew George W. Bush had spoken out against Social Security in its current form during his stint as governor of Texas? Better yet, how many of them were shocked when he tried to dismantle the program years later? Would those people still have voted for him?
The media, whose primary purpose in a democratic society is to enable the public to make informed choices about self-government, is failing miserably. Eventually, someone at a major news organization has to wake up and realize that people have no idea what they’re voting for anymore.
Because if they don’t, we might as well start electing the president by texting A or B to a toll-free number. We can call it, “So, you think you can run the free world?”
