First class spin bought hook, line and sinker May 9, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : Government, Media , trackbackI have been in awe and amazement at the blatant disrespect of viewers and dishonesty in the primary coverage this year. Some cable news networks have been nothing more than ooh and aah sessions and cheerleading for candidates of their choice. The media has driven this primary like none other I can ever remember. Just two weeks ago, while Obama was “on a losing streak”, finally the media admitted the bias in coverage . (video)
Of course, if everyone’s buying the spin and parroting the lines, why should they stop? Now, the same dynamic was going on to a lesser extent in the RNC primary, but the voters didn’t vote as instructed (for Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson or Rudy). In the RNC campaign, we did hear talk about winning the correct states , but in the DNC campaign it seems that is off limits. Perhaps that is because the RNC structures their delegate system fairly similar to the electoral college system. If Obama was the RNC candidate and won the states he did, he would not win the primary.
Ten days ago, The media was reporting a wane in the momentum of Senator Obama’s campaign, and that he just couldn’t close the deal. They talked about how last minute voters were breaking for Clinton in every primary.On Tuesday, the senators split states and now the media declares the game is all but over for Senator Clinton . I can not be the only person in America who sees the electoral college standard is one that must be considered.At this point in the race, one begins to ask when is an honest assessment of the electoral results going to be discussed? How much longer are democratic primaries going to be detached from electoral realities?
For example, if today was the general election and Senator Obama wins every state he won to date in the primary (not likely) he would have 212 electoral votes and if he took the remaining states of WV, KY, OR, SD and MT, he would have 238 electoral votes. 270 are needed to win the election, so he would lose the general election.
Senator Clinton on the other hand currently has 297 electoral votes in the states she has won to date. If you subtract Michigan’s 17 delegates she still has 280 electoral votes . Please remember Senator Obama withdrew his name from the ballot, it was “on there” and then he had it removed.
None of this is secret or new information and I simply do not understand how people can not do the simple mathmatics and realize if this was a presidential contest Clinton won already and Obama could not mathmatically win, but yet we hear this is “how we figure delegates” and the real winner of the election doesn’t have enough delegates by democrats standards? What kind of rank idiots are running the party anyway? Is this who we are to trust change to?.
Does anyone see a correlation between how the Democrats system is not based in reality and continually losing presidential elections? Does anyone else see a leadership gap in the DNC ? If the Democrats want to be taken seriously as the party of change, shouldn’t change begin in the Democratic Party ? Shouldn’t we see they can run a primary without major problems that they created themselves? Dean’s attitude toward the voters of states he needs to win the general election should be reserved for other politicians. How can Democrats be taken seriously if they plan to disenfranchisie Florida (and Michigan) voters who had nothing to do with the decision on when to vote, especially after crying for 8 years about the 2000 election? Where has Howard Dean’s leadership been? Have any of the democratic candidates called for his resignation publically? Now that would show a sign of intestinal fortitude and leadership. video
If the best the Democratic Party has to offer for leadership, or as a foretaste of what is to come, what kind of change is that? We keep hearing that we want to get beyond politics and beyond race but what do we have, politics, spin and race coming out of both campaigns. In fact, how much more old politics can you get than Howard Dean? Listen to him-not me !
The North Carolina primary showed that America has not gotten beyond race. Maybe post-racial is supposed to be defined as describing whites being post-racial ? When I hear Barack talk condescending about white voters, it certainly can not apply to him. He keeps telling white folks what our predispositions are. I have even heard Hillary lambasted for mentioning that white blue collar workers tend to support her. If we are so post-racial, why is stating a polling result biased or wrong? Why can one candidate mention attributes of a race and it be fine while another can not mention race at all? To pretend race is not an issue in Harlem, the Bronx, LA, Philadelphia, The Loop, South Side Chicago, Trinity United Church of Christ, Boise, Miami, Matha’s Vineyard or Coral Gables is to be detached from reality. Have peoples attitudes changed drastically? Sure they have.
But this pipe dream being sold is a lie. Race will always matter to many black people and white people. Reparations are still being discussed. A realistic view is that the emotinonal healing still needing to occur is among the black people. Just look at Michelle Obama, a woman who has risen to an enviable place in life is still very bitter and trying to get beyond injustices she perceives has been done to her and her people. That very language shows that we are still divided even among the leaders of the black community and those wanting to lead the country, it is still an issue.
I was glad to see this video point to the fact that his appeal is to a limited demographic, even in the primary cycle with favorable press coverage. Indiana points to the same thing. (video)
I certainly am not advocating a change of rules at this stage of primary elections, But when one considers the electoral college is the standard by which presidential elections are decided, then there is more than a compelling case for the superdelegates to nominate Hillary Clinton. It is pure electoral mathmatics and why you have a superdelegate system. The superdelegates system was put into place as a corrective.
No one is going to win the nomination without the superdelegates putting them over. The problem is fear of being called a racist if they balance this to what the electoral system is. The main problem was the system iteself, a problem Dean knew existed and did nothing about. Secondly, the next problem came when state legislatures voted to move their priomary dates up and the “party committees” wanted to show who was boss and said if you do that your votes won’t count and your delegations won’t be seated. He played chicken and the states said who do the political parites think they are to tell the states in a federal system when they can vote? But Howard Dean, is going to show the states who he is, and teach them a lesson to mess with the DNC.
Don’t people get this? These party leaders think they are gods who can order state governments around when they are just a political party. Who pays for the primary elections? Not the political parties. This whole situation just spotlights the insanity of the democratic party politics and how people don’t even question it is even worse! No wonder it is happening- people just take it.
We hear things like hope and change, but let’s see the candidates get presidential and take control of their party and have some straight talk, not politics. If this Barack Obama is about change, lets see him tell Howard Dean to take a hike for overstepping his position and disenfranchising voters. Or Hillary Clinton. If you can not take on those in your party, and clean up your own party, why should any sane person believe you can accomplish it in the country?
Comments»
David Broder wrote on the 24th April, 2008 in an op-ed piece:-
“But in the seven weeks between Ohio and Pennsylvania, a Post poll found shockingly high percentages of voters who regard Clinton as dishonest and untrustworthy.”
Be it seven or ten weeks hence, there really is, quite objectively, something amiss in the character of Hillary Clinton,that not just the polls, Mr. Broder, or merely myself sense - it seems to be ” Clintonest opportunism”.The “nest” i suppose, is the perch in the White House to which she seeks to return. That many people support her cannot be denied - but, how Obama deals with her presence come the convention is now quite a challenge that obviously he can’t avoid nor easily escape.
The real issue is not how well Clinton, Obama, or McCain might do in the closely divided battleground states, but that we shouldn’t have battleground states and spectator states in the first place. Every vote in every state should be politically relevant in a presidential election. And, every vote should be equal. We should have a national popular vote for President in which the White House goes to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule which awards all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state. Because of this rule, candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. Two-thirds of the visits and money are focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money goes to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people are merely spectators to the presidential election.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill has been approved by 17 legislative chambers (one house in Colorado, Arkansas, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and two houses in Maryland, Illinois, Hawaii, California, and Vermont). It has been enacted into law in Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These states have 50 (19%) of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
MVY;
I hear this argument from all the time from a liberal I walk with on the weekends. In fact I hear it from liberals all the time and conservatives who have less than a stellar education. This “popular vote” shtick really got legs about the time Gore lost to Bush. The political left never likes to lose and when they do the whole system is suspect . . . fine as long as they are winning you see, it’s never their ideas.
If you go back to your jr.high civics and/or history classes (at least when I was in school) you’ll remember that the reason we have the Electoral College system is because it hugely decreases the chances of voter fraud. In many statewide elections, that rely on the “popular vote” count, fraud is rampant. We here in Washington got a governor this way. She was a flawed candidate running against a very popular Republican and she managed to win by 177 votes (third recount) after losing in the first and second count. A year later, after a local conservative blogger was able to examine voting records through the Freedom of Information Act, it was found that there were at least 2000 fraudulent votes counted. Almost all fraud was from two populous counties. Those two populous counties usurped the power of the smaller counties with lax voter oversight. Another good example of what you seek is the dysfunctional politics of Chicago or Detroit.
In those same classes you would have heard your teacher explain that the Electoral College makes all states equal. In other words, low population states like Wyoming or Utah carry the same weight as high population states like New York or California. The word “fairness” comes to mind.
You want to change the system because some states are already in the bag for one party of the other and you feel that (you and your state I’m assuming) you are being ignored by candidates. You want to be in the mix. This is a little like throwing the baby out with the bath water. So that you can feel good about your political involvement, you would willing risk election integrity and stability of the country. Like so many things in this world today it is all about “me” and that’s a bad thing when you are talking national politics.
What can I say but, “dittos to G. Jiggy’s comments?
Good stuff Jiggy!…
Great post John!
mvy and G. Jiggy,
I think many people forget that our first government was the articles of confederation which had a weak central government and many were in fact content with that.
People were suspect of a new federal and constitutional government and were very aware of the danger of the urban ruling factor and we came up with an indirect representative system intentionally to be able to form a union of states, ensuring states that their rights would not be abbrogated.
I was pointing in the article of the inane process the democrats use in primary politics and how non-reflective it is of the federal system . It tries to do something like you are speaking about and gets all screwed up in the works.
Remember Washington State
Since the “super delegate” process has been exposed, I must admit that I didn’t know of them until this election, it is just incredible to me that the “Party of the People” (hint: starts with a ‘D’) has a system that can disenfranchise every Democrat voter in the land with the votes of a few privileged party elites who are answerable to no one. When I switched my voting allegiance years ago, it was Soviet policies like these that made me change.
The Democrats now are the party of the powerful. Trial lawyers, union big-wigs, multi-millionaire Hollywood moguls and actors, billionaire Silicon Valley CEOs and programmers and the list keeps growing. They tell the little guy anything (with the help of the compliant press) and he eats it up. A good current example is gas prices. Why exactly are they so high? The biggest reason is that every Democrat has voted to not drill and pump our domestic supplies. How does that help the little guy? It doesn’t but the Democrats are directly responsible. They block any drilling and then blame the nearest Republican, works every time.