The 24/7 Election and Media Carousel

by Walter Brasch

      The national news media—and their sidekicks, the cackling pundits—had been asking the same questions the past six months. “Will he? Won’t he? Should he? Shouldn’t he? Can he? Can’t he?”

      The “he” is Joe Biden. The vice-president said numerous times he was still thinking about running for president, but hadn’t made up his mind. The Biden question kept the media busy speculating about an issue that even Mr. Biden couldn’t answer, nor should he have been forced to make a commitment in the media’s time frame.

      This past week, he decided not to run for the presidency.

      Although Biden explained his reasons, the media can now spend a few weeks asking the question, “But what if he had decided to run?” It passes as what the media now think is a deep and probing issue.

      The general election is still more than a year away, and we’re seeing, hearing, and reading about the campaign. There is little in-depth reporting about policies and issues, and a lot of superficial reporting about personalities. The 24/7 news cycle has become constant repetition with minimal information.

      It is this journalistic ineptness that has kept Donald Trump in the media’s spotlight. Whatever the issue, the media breathlessly rush to Trump for a comment. He is getting more TV air time than A-list actors and the rest of the Republican field combined. It’s difficult to find stories that quote anyone other than Trump or Ben Carson, Trump’s main competition at this point in the election cycle.

      It is this also this journalistic ineptness that has also focused upon Hillary Clinton, who may be the Democrats’ heir-apparent to the White House. While the media focus upon Clinton, they keep believing that Bernie Sanders is just a campaign distraction, and have given him little thought, even though he is bringing as many as 20,000 voters to his rallies, and making major speeches, all of which have substance. The voices of the other two major Democratic candidates are muted by the media that have made decisions for the rest of us.

      It’s nearly impossible to find stories about similarities and differences among the candidates of both parties. It’s even rarer that the mainstream media are challenging the statements of the major candidates, pointing out errors, semi-truths, and outright lies. For many, the attempt to be “fair” means allowing the subjects to have a megaphone; the search for the truth has been fumbled, with the media role apparently being that of Charlie Brown falling down after Lucy pulls the football away at the last moment.  

      From Iowa, where the candidates and media will congregate in December for the Feb. 1 election, we’ll learn that all of the candidates say they love pork and corn, the farm life, and the spirit of those in one of the flattest states in the country. In New Hampshire, which has its primary a week later, we’ll learn the candidates think granite is the best kind of rock, and support the quiet rural life, and the spirit of those in New England. In South Carolina, the media will report that the candidates have each declared they believe whatever it is that South Carolina believes. What’s left of the candidates will make their way into Pennsylvania for the primary on April 26, near the end of the campaign season. In the Keystone State, we’ll hear them say they love cheese steaks. When the candidates are in the eastern part of the state, they  will proclaim their love for the Phillies;  when in the western half, they’ll root for the Pirates. Everywhere else, they’ll praise the rural life. The media, of course, will report all this—unless a Kardashian sneezes, in which case the media will run shove aside political coverage for the more important late-breaking news.

      While focusing upon the Democrats and Republicans, the media will ignore candidates for the other political parties, perpetuating a self-fulfilling prophecy of ignorance that they don’t have a chance to be president—and therefore their views are meaningless.

      During the coming year, we will be subjugated to dozens of robo-calls from celebrities, politicians, friends of politicians, union and business leaders. We will be exposed to hundreds of TV ads. We will receive several dozen flyers and postcards. Our e-mail will be jammed with junk, much of them asking for donations. Our landscape will be overrun by campaign signs and billboards. We will see, hear, and read the comments of pundits who know little about government and a lot about show business. The campaign media cost for just the two emerging Democratic and Republican nominees will be over $1 billion each. Television stations will embrace the race for the primaries; newspapers will settle for advertising for local candidates.

      In slightly more than two weeks, Americans will vote for candidates for city and county offices, and for judges. These candidates have immediate and direct affect upon the people. We must learn more about them, their beliefs and principles. We must force the media to do in-depth coverage.

      And, most important, we must vote in this election—even if the presidential candidates aren’t on the ballot.

[Dr. Brasch is a former newspaper and magazine reporter and editor who covered politics and government for four decades. His latest book is Fracking Pennsylvania.]

The Late Great Commonwealth: Catching Up to the Republican Primary

                  

                            by Walter  Brasch

            It’s the beginning of April, and that means I just finished celebrating New Year’s Eve, and will soon begin shopping for Valentine’s gifts. In a month or two, I may even get around to toasting St. Patrick.

            It’s not procrastination, it’s just that I’m a Pennsylvanian, and the state encourages me to be behind the times. At one time, Pennsylvania was first in just about everything-—and then Ben Franklin died. Since then, we’ve been first in ridiculous license plate slogans.

            When other states, including those settled by Puritans, got rid of their “blue laws,” Pennsylvania still bans the sale of cars on Sundays. By archaic practices, it still allows municipal governments and school districts to raise taxes and create more buildings without giving the people the right of a vote, common in most states. It is also the only state that still taxes people for income, property, and their occupation. Forty-nine other states believe pigeon shoots are animal cruelty; we proudly proclaim our state as the last bastion of the right to “bear arms and blast birds.” And, we don’t allow Independents to vote in our primaries.

            Iowa, with anomalies known as a straw poll and a caucus, is the first major battleground in presidential races, having usurped New Hampshire, which thought having the official primary was a birthright dating to when granite first showed up in the state. Nevertheless, whether Iowa or New Hampshire, Americans understand that the people need something to break them out of their Winter funk when snow covers what will eventually become cornfields in Iowa and the ski lifts of New Hampshire will no longer be inoperable because of blizzards.

            With nothing else to do in January, the media schussed into the Hawkeye State—just as soon as they could find enough chauffeurs to drive them to wherever Iowa is. With megawatt lights and dimly-lit minds, they infiltrated the state so that the voters not only had their own individualized politicians, they also had their own puppy-dog reporters prancing brightly behind them to the coffee shop, factory, and bathroom.

            Surrounded by the media who smugly said they were only telling the public what they needed to know to defend and preserve democracy—and millions in advertising revenue—the candidates played to the press, attacking each other rather than attacking the issues. In neatly-packaged seven-second sound bites, politicians and the media sliced, diced, and crunched the campaign to fit onto a 21-inch screen.

            Because of an inner need to believe they matter, the media predict who will win the nomination, changing their predictions as quickly as a fashionista changes shoes. For what seemed to be decades, the ink-stained bandwagon has pulled voters and campaign dollars, and left Pennsylvania voters waiting at the altar for candidates who don’t care anymore, abandoned by the media who have found other “stories of the week.”

            For all practical purposes, the Pennsylvania primaries, with large slates of uncontested local and state races, is about as useless as a Department of Ethnic Studies at Bob Jones University. By the time the 2000 primary rolled into Pennsylvania, Al Gore and George W. Bush each had 65 percent of the delegate vote needed for their parties’ nomination. In 2004, Bush and John Kerry had already locked up the nominations. In 2008, Pennsylvania became a pivotal state for the Democrats for the first time since 1976, with Hillary Clinton defeating Barack Obama before losing the nomination by June. For the Republicans, it was “business as usual,” with John McCain having already sewn up the nomination.

            A Republican needs 1,144 delegate votes to get the nomination. Mitt Romney, America’s best runner-up, has 568; two-term senator Rick Santorum, recovering from a blistering loss to a moderate Democrat in Pennsylvania’s 2006 Senate campaign, has 273; Ron Paul, who may or may not be a Republican, has 50. Newt Gingrich has 135 delegates; however, this week he announced he downsized his staff and campaign, and is layin’ low—except, of course, for the times he can get free TV time to lambaste Romney and Santorum who are engaged in a vicious personal battle that has bubbled out of the TV ad cauldron.

            The April 3 primaries will add a maximum of 98 delegates. And that brings Super Northeast Tuesday, April 24. The Republican leftovers and their never-ending TV ads will blitz Pennsylvania, which might even become relevant.

            Even if Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Rhode Island—and Pennsylvania with 72 of the 231 delegate votes—go for Romney, it won’t be enough to get him the nomination. However, it will be enough to cause major financial backers to pull their support for Santorum and what’s left of the Gingrich campaign, leaving Romney to flip-flop into the Republican nomination convention, Aug. 27, in Tampa, Fla.—which seems to be the Republicans’ destiny.

            [Dr. Brasch has covered political campaigns for more than three decades. His latest book is the critically-acclaimed fast-paced mystery Before the First Snow, available at amazon.com and his publisher, Greeley & Stone.]Within the next week, another nine states voted.