I’d be more depressed about that state of media coverage if I thought John McCain had much of a chance to win the presidency. And, I’ll admit, the media coverage does concern me. Its substanceless focus on race, gender, and beer vs. arugula is about the only thing that gives McCain a prayer of a chance. Still, John McCain is not the same candidate he was eight years ago. He doesn’t have the energy he used to have. He can’t fire people up the way he did in all those town hall meeting in New Hampshire in 2000. And his party isn’t the same party. McCain is selling the same dogfood that has the president trapped in the high-twenties in the polls. There’s no way McCain can win this thing unless one of two things happens. If the Democrats remain deeply divided, or if the media succeeds in making the election all about personality and race, then McCain can compete. In the battlefield of ideas, or even the battlefield of political talent, McCain is hopelessly outmatched.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
‘If the Democrats remain deeply divided, or if the media succeeds in making the election all about personality and race, then McCain can compete.’
So, what else is happening?
I agree to a certain extent. McCain has no energy, he moves like an old man.
But right now I think it is 50/50. Unless the media comes to its senses and realizes what a disaster it would be for him to be POTUS it could possibly do it.
I am no where near as optimistic about the American electorate as I was 8 years ago. I think most American’s are stupid, and I mean REALLY stupid. I did not used to think this way. I thought we had a certain street smarts. No more.
Right now we are on course to get the country and the government we deserve. 4 more years of Bush like governance and we are doomed.
nalbar
I meant ‘HE could possibly do it’, meaning McCain could be elected.
nalbar
McCain is hopeless. Days ago McCain was in Kentucky talking to poor working class people telling them how great reducing capital gains tax would be – like they do buy into hedge funds and EFTs.
The media is focused where the action is, on Obama and Clinton gets a pass. b/c they’ve to make it up to her.
Every body loves a food fight. That’s news. Sadly we Dems are waging is a down and dirty civil war. And that is news.
You forgot coffee (I assume black–cream and sugar, that’s too close to a latte) vs. orange juice.
McCain is NOT as formidable as he was eight years ago, but right now, I don’t think too many people have had a real chance to see that. And when they finally do, they’re going to shocked the core. McCain’s largely coasting on the fumes of his 2000 campaign–that plus the fact that he’s in a presumptive nominee honeymoon period, anyway, in which the Dems get to conveniently tear each other apart for his benefit. I just cannot wait for the Obama/McCain debates. If Obama can’t completely destroy this make-believe image that McCain’s using to manipulate a generally complcit media, then he’s not half as good as I think he is.
On a related note, McCain’s thoroughly shitty showing in PA just astounded me. Maybe the voters are already well ahead of the media. But that would hardly have been the first time.
The problem with this is that if the Dens go to the convention there will only be about 90 days until the election. That is not enough time to over come the media. And very little time for debates if McCain stalls. And if he does poorly in one debate, he will stall while the media explains it all away.
And don’t forget, Gore pounded Bush in the debates. All the media talked about was the ‘sighs’.
nalbar
Yes, your position on all this is the flip-side of the coin that I worry about, too–and I fear you may yet be proved right. The media are almost incapable of NOT giving McCain a pass every time he needs one.
I’m hoping Obama becomes the ACKNOWLEDGED presumptive nominee well before August, but that largely depends on what the superdelegates and Hillary do and the narrative the media attach to events. At this point, I try to hope for the best and at least try to believe we’re collectively capable of keeping McCain out of the White House. We’ll see.
And the debates? Yeah, we don’t want to read any crap about Obama flipping off the decent and honorable McCain (like he apparently did Hillary!), but I’m still looking forward to them.
If I were a betting man and the odds were set close, my money would be on the odious lunatic McCain to win the presidency.
The media has turned on Obama; the neocons in the Bush regime are hell-bent to create more violence in the Mid-East; and the Democratic Party leadership will not oppose the totality of the current administration’s destructive craziness.
If Cheney & Co can create new a new vector of violence between now and October, I’d double my bet that McCain would win.
Hey Boo- what do you see that makes you think that the media is going to change what they have been doing for the past 8 years? Tell me -PLEASE!
Yesterday here in Nevada, the Republicans had their state convention in Reno. McCain is not well liked among Nevada Republicans. Romney came to speak for McCain and Ron Paul came to speak as well. Ron Paul’s people dominated the convention.
The state party tried to ramrod a list of national delegates that were chosen by the committee and approved of by the McCain camp, instead of electing individual delegates at the convention (which is what the convention is for.) The Ron Paul supporters were the majority in attendance and voted to overturn the rules and elect their own delegates. It all went downhill from there and the chairman ended up putting the convention into “recess” at the end of the day after getting nowhere and had to be escorted to his car by hotel security. He wouldn’t even put adjournment up to a vote. It’s expected they’ll schedule a new convention later, this time in Las Vegas. Many delegates went home and the Ron Paul delegates tried to restart the convention without the chair but could not make a quorum at that point.
Hilarious.
I’m surprised that there’s no talk about McCain continuing to lose large chunks of GOP primary voters even though he’s had no one running against him for months. In PA he only got 73 percent against Paul and Huckabee, while Clinton and Obama got 100% combined. I can’t imagine anything he can say, any speech or interview he can pull off, to generate excitement from any slice of the GOP or indie voters.
McCain is dead in the water. Current polls reflect the divisions among Dems and the total lack of McCain coverage. As soon as the focus shifts to Dem vs Rep, McCain will drop like a rock as the one-on-one comparison takes effect and the Libertarians and Rushies and the rest of the fringes throw their own special shit all over him. I don’t think even Bush and Cheney can concoct an “emergency” that could save him.
Why do you say McCain will drop like a rock? People keep saying it, and I’m not buying it. McCain’s running even in a year when we should be crippling him, divisions or no divisions. And there’s still no end in sight to the Democratic primary. That’s made worse by the fact that Clinton is probably not going to drop out before the convention. (I wish people would stop pretending otherwise.) If this goes all the way to Denver, we may well be fucked.
The press will be blowing McCain and hammering Obama from now through November. That’s the simple truth. The Democratic leadership is, at this point, allowing Her Majesty to sabotage the general election.
The media is doing its job – it’s earning a profit. People don’t go into business to provide a service, they provide a service in order to turn a profit. If detailed analysis of the issues and informing the public were more profitable then that’s what they’d present, but if food fights and mud wrestling is more profitable then that’s what they’ll present. Who has a higher rating – Nightline or the Late Show? News Hour or Flavor of Love? CSPAN or MTV?
Our job as consumers is to make the madness that they’re currently presenting less profitable, while ensuring that those who do present the information that is necessary for self-governance are rewarded for doing so.
Our other alternative is to become producers and compete in the information marketplace, which is in large part what the blogosphere is currently doing, but complaining about the media while continuously consuming their product will do nothing to change the media’s behavior. “McDonalds is killing Americans, but can I get a Big Mac meal, supersized, with a large Coke?” We could try to get the government involved but the 1st Amendment is pretty clear about that one.
The media sucks, no question. Now what?
The media will keep pushing the crap stories that bring attention. Lapel pins, errant pastors and rampant elitists get folks revved up, no matter that these are stories of little importance. That they may be assisting McCain in his pursuit of the presidency is an unfortunate side effect.