I have a favor to ask of you.
I know the Iowa caucuses are just around the corner, and while I have no idea how the caucus system works, I am sure of one thing. I’m tired of having the Washington political consultants and media elites decide for us who our candidates should be. So this year when you cast your vote (or whatever you do at the caucuses to pick a candidate) I’d like you to choose anyone other than Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, the two front runners the media has already anointed as the Democratic candidates du jour.
If you will bear with me just a while (i.e., keep reading my little missive), I’ll tell you why I am making this seemingly outrageous request of you, one I freely admit I have no particular right to demand.
(cont.)
Every election year the TV talking heads promote the hell out of the “horse race” aspects of the election, and virtually ignore substantive coverage of our politician’s policy proposals, focusing their attention instead on rank gossip, “gotcha moments”, so-called gaffes or missteps by the candidates, how much money has been raised (or not raised) and poll numbers. Indeed, I am so sick of hearing about the “latest polls” being described as “breaking news,” of the implications of said polls for candidates X or candidate y or z, of the “polling trends,” etc., that I get nauseated every time I even hear the word “poll.”
But by far the worst thing our dear friends in the media do is impose their views regarding who should be the candidate of our party on the rest of us by relentlessly devoting 90% or more of their coverage to whomever they decide to designate as the front runners. This last year they picked Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama as their designated media darlings (i.e., leading Democratic candidates) before either of them had even announced their candidacies, and since that time they have spent most of their attention and given most of their precious air time to reports about those two individuals. When they have given any attention at all to any other candidate it has generally been negative coverage at best.
All we have heard about John Edwards is his expensive haircuts, his expensive homes and how insensitive he is to run for President when his wife has cancer. He has given some incredibly powerful speeches which I found profoundly moving and which addressed issues that none of the other candidates were emphasizing such as health care and racial justice (or at least weren’t emphasizing until he brought them up) but you would never know it from the media coverage he has received.
Dennis Kucinich, the only true progressive candidate in the field has been virtually ignored except for those occasions when he can be made a figure of fun, such as the story about his sighting of a UFO. Even the dramatic move he made to force a vote in the House on his resolution to bring impeachment charges against Vice President Cheney was dismissed as a mere publicity stunt by most commentators, if it was mentioned at all. He was the first candidate to call for a complete and immediate withdrawal from Iraq, the most vehement in his warnings regarding Bush and Cheney’s Iran war plans, and the only candidate yet who has proposed not just universal health care, but a single payer universal health coverage system like those in Europe (derided as “socialized medicine” by Republicans and the health insurance lobbyists), where both health care costs and the adult and infant mortality rates are lower than under our privatized corporate system of “pay or be denied” (and sometimes pay and still be denied) health care plans. Yet, most of the pundits on television seem to regard his candidacy as a joke and a waste of their time.
Chris Dodd, the candidate who has made the loss of our our civil liberties the focus of his campaign has likewise been ignored by the media until he recently put a hold (or tired to put a hold) on the execrable FISA legislation which would have give President Bush even more power to pry into our private lives. A bill that would excuse not only the Bush administration’s past violations of the law with their illegal warrrantless electronic surveillance programs, but also would excuse the illegality of the multinational telecommunications companies who allowed Bush to tap into their networks so some geek at the NSA could peruse your email communications and internet browsing habits.
His courageous stand garnered him tremendous good will among ordinary Democrats who sent his campaign an infusion of thousands of dollars from small contributors (people like you and I). After Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stabbed him in the back by refusing to honor his hold, he pledged to filibuster this truly atrocious FISA bill against the wishes of his own party leadership, a move that forced many of the other presidential candidates in the Senate to join him. Yet all the Chris Matthews, David Broders and their colleagues in the tiny world of “opinion makers” could say about this rare act of political courage was that Chris Dodd was “grandstanding” and that his threat to filibuster was a mere “stunt.” This despite the fact that his record of opposition to the Bush administration’s assault on our civil liberties predates his candidacy by many years.
Instead of informing the public regarding the positions of these candidates, the news media, and especially television news “journalists” (and yes, that is meant as sarcasm Juan Williams), has summarily dismissed them as “second and third tier” candidacies, and treated them with as much respect as Lou Dobbs grants the “illegal aliens” he rails about every week day. What we do get from these “very serious” political commentators is an endless cascade of “news” regarding Hillary Clinton’s cleavage or the photo of a shirtless Barack Obama at the beach, or how much campaign cash each of these two designated front runners have raised, or whether America is ready for the “dual presidency” of Bill and Hillary. We hear about the effectiveness of campaign ads, but not whether they are accurate. We even get inane stories such as the one about Barack Obama’s middle name (it’s Hussein, by the way, for those of you who don’t watch Fox News) or whether Hillary Clinton left a waitress a tip or not. What we rarely get is any information regarding Senator Clinton’s or Senator Obama’s positions on the issues.
Nonetheless, whether the stories are good, bad or indifferent, they have one thing in common: they all assume that Senator Clinton or Senator Obama will be the Democratic nominee. In short, the media has already chosen who they believe should be our party’s candidate. “By their deeds ye shall know them” goes the famous verse from The Gospel of Matthew, and indeed, the media’s relentless obsession with the campaigns of Senators Clinton and Obama, and their refusal to cover the other candidates, makes it clear to me, and I hope to you also, that our Beltway media elite would like to limit our choices to the only two candidates which they acknowledge. Well, I for one, am sick and tired of having the media make my decisions for me.
Indeed, if they have their way, most Democrats won’t have the opportunity to cast a meaningful vote for who should be our party’s nominee, since the nomination will be practically be over by the time that states like mine (New York) hold their primaries. The field will already have been narrowed to the only candidates still standing. But you good folks of Iowa don’t have that problem. As the first Democrats in the Nation to choose who our next presidential candidates should be you also have the opportunity to go against the dominant media narrative, the one that constantly tells us only Clinton or Obama have a chance to win, by voting for someone other than the media’s chosen ones.
So I guess, what I’m really saying is please, give democracy a chance. Keep as many of this year’s candidates in the race by voting for them and not for Hillary Clinton or Barack obama. Send a message to our media and political “elites” inside Washington, DC that they don’t speak for you or for millions of others in America. Let them know this race won’t be decided by the candidate with the most money, the greatest name recognition, the most photogenic smile or the one talked about the most on CNN, MsNBC, Fox News or the three nightly network news shows. It’s the greatest thing you could do for your party, and more importantly for your country.
Please, give it some thought. And thank you for reading.
Sincerely,
Steven D
