Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Cavalcade of News on the March

Well, I wish John Edwards had kept his thing in his pants back when the opportunity presented herself. I’m surprised but not devastated by the news of his extramarital affair; after all, he didn’t promise to be faithful to me till death do us part. I’m mostly disappointed that he’s probably blown the chance to be a key member of an Obama administration.

I caucused for Edwards last January and he was my second choice after Howard Dean in 2004, and of all the Democratic candidates in the race when this campaign started a couple of eons ago, I still think he was the most aware of and the most concerned about the plight of working families.

That said, I want to go back to a quote I read from a Hillary Clinton supporter shortly after Obama clinched the nomination. This supporter complained that after it came down to a two-person race, the media’s love affair with Obama made the difference.

I’d like to point out that the media’s love affair with both Obama and Clinton was what made it a two-person race in the first place. In my estimation (and that of the thousands of other Iowans who helped him earn 15 delegates at the caucus last January), Edwards’ experience and ideas made him the best choice to defeat the Republicans in November—but somehow he got dubbed the pretty-boy candidate, the haircut candidate, and the media treated him as an also-ran before the campaign was barely off the ground. (Actually, my political views matched up 100 percent with those of Dennis Kucinich, but he was treated as the joke candidate from day one.)

He who lives by the media love affair dies by the media love affair. Sadly, that shows that media pundits have entirely too much influence on the electoral process. Even more sadly, it shows that the electorate is too easily influenced.

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