My primary concern

So last time I discussed issues regarding the coming Presidential primary on the Republican side of the ticket and promised to look at the Democratic ballot. However, the race on the Democratic side just isn’t as interesting as the chaotic free-for-all on the Republican side (which seems a reversal in how the 2 parties normally operate). Frankly, the Michigan Democratic Presidential primary ballot looks like swiss cheese as it’s missing 2 or the top 3 contenders for the nomination who needed to vow to Iowans that their votes were more important than yours lest the oh-so-serious voters of Iowa hold it against them and stop their campaigns. For too long, the premier position of the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries have ensured that our Presidential campaigns are focused heavily on promises of ever-greater subsidies for corn farmers in Iowa and anti-tax pledges to the wealthy elite in the Granite State and not enough on rust belt concerns like the loss of manufacturing jobs.

As the overwhelming favorite, Senator Hillary Clinton didn’t have as much to lose as the campaigns of Barack Obama and John Edwards and so her campaign chose to remain on the ballot in Michigan while her top 2 competitors asked to have their names removed. In any case, the Michigan Democratic primary results are pretty much nothing more than a beauty contest with no real binding results. In remains to be seen how much the media decides the results are worth (my guess is that it depends on what they've already decided the story will be and whether Michigan's results play into that narrative). It’s a shame seeing as how Edwards’ heavy union support and Obama’s obvious appeal to the many black voters in the Detroit area and independent voters in the “middle” of the state could both be seen as paths to winning the state’s delegates and could have propelled either or both onto the national ticket and helped make Michigan a true player in the march to decide the national party’s nominees.

If you think I sound like I’m less than enthused about Clinton’s candidacy it’s not because I’m against her gaining the nomination, it’s more that I’m traditionally for the most populist candidate as well as usually rooting for the underdog (the two go hand in hand in modern American politics, for reasons I address below), and against the media coronation that seemed to be taking place earlier in the year. Clinton could only be a step up from the blundering and corrupt fool we have in the Oval Office right now- except that the media obsession and irrational hatred of the Clintons lingers. I would have concern that this could prove to be a distraction from governing as it was when President Clinton was launching attacks against al Qaeda in response to their growing threat but all the media wanted to talk about was the missile in the President’s pants. Conveniently, they imitated the right wing’s cries of “wag the dog” but then after September 11, 2001 wailed that Clinton hadn't done enough. I digress, but only to show how the media creates a narrative that isn’t necessarily true but becomes truth through repetition, a lie told often enough...

We’ve seen the media create an “inevitable” campaign (on the Democratic side with Hillary, on the Republican side first with McCain, then Giuliani, then Thomspon, then Romney and now back to McCain- anything to stop Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee who’s embrace of theocracy isn’t as disturbing to the media as his economic populism is) only to jump on some minor issue to beat up the leader with and create a horse race because more ratings and more money can be earned from a hotly-contested battle. It’s a long-standing theory of mine that the media will ALWAYS try to create a contest even where there is none because the closer the race, the more advertising money the campaigns will spend with the TV networks and thus they make more money. They also do their best to ensure the “marquee match ups” the same way boxing promoters maneuver their fighters into fights with the biggest purse (in boxing this is done by having your fighter beat up lots of losers to falsely inflate their record to seem more impressive- in politics it's often achieved by raising lots of money as early as possible in the race). It is this quest for the biggest, most expensive battle that has the media trying to coronate Hillary Clinton and only “select” Republican candidates with ties to the Wall Street financiers who helped George W. Bush swamp John McCain in 2000. McCain was best known for his stance in trying to get big money out of the political process- an issue he mostly ignores now.

Another disgusting aspect of this is that the media will often push out voices that don’t align with their profit-making motive. Witness the media silence regarding the fact that Iowa is, despite their best efforts, a tight 3-way race where the John Edwards stands a serious chance of winning or at least finishing in a tight cluster with the other 2 front runners. Edwards has run the most populist campaign in recent memory and speaks out strong and loudly against entrenched corporate interests which threaten to overwhelm our democracy if left unchecked (if it’s not already too late). Edwards was on the ticket in 2004 and has spent a fair amount of time campaigning in Iowa and yet the media treats him as an also ran- it is fair to argue that because of those factors he’s not treated seriously because despite these advantages he’s still in a dead heat but that would require ignoring the obvious appeal of the former First Lady and Senator from New York is running against perhaps the most charismatic Democratic politician since Senator Clinton’s husband left office. The media black out of Edwards is no doubt because the main message of his campaign is that big money (you know, the people who buy ads on network television) has too much power while the citizens don’t have enough. The last thing the traditional media wants to see is a citizenry in control of the political system- no more deregulation, stronger worker protections, FAIR trade, etc. In other words, they cover politics while looking out for their bottom line. Frankly, the mainstream corporate media has become an obstacle in the fight for the citizens of this country to take their democracy back and their coverage of politics proves it.

Despite all the crying and gnashing of teeth at Fox News that Democrats are “too scared” to debate on their network (in fact, it was not the party bosses but the Democratic activists who forced the move as they have cataloged far too many examples of Fox News’ obvious bias in their reporting, including time after time placing a Democrat “D” next to the name of a disgraced Republican, that the network is run by Republican political operatives, most of its pundits are paid by right wing think tanks and is known to have been the first network to wrongly call the 2000 election for candidate Bush) and that this is a sign they only cater to their own base, the network has announced that they will exclude Republican candidate Ron Paul from their New Hampshire debate. Paul recently set the record for one-day on-line campaign fund raising for a presidential candidate. However, Paul’s campaign is outside the parameters the media wants to see and thus they do everything they can to shut out his voice. I strongly disagree with many of Paul’s positions but I would strongly advocate for these positions to be openly debated instead of being shut out completely. Paul has polled consistently better than many of the media darling such as Fred Thompson in the state of New Hampshire and yet Paul is excluded and ignored.

We’ve seen this before when the debate system set up by the 2 major parties shut out 2rd party voices such as Ralph Nader who once again was a loud voice opposed to media deregulation and consolidation and of the influence of corporate America over our political system and the resulting erosion of our freedoms and our rights. The media pretends polls are what matters when polls often only are a reflection of what the media is reporting. It’s a vicious circle in which the media gets to create the winners and losers by what they report and what they exclude and often the winners are the ones that, unsurprisingly, have the positions most in line with the CEOs and shareholders of the giant media conglomerates. Everywhere I go, people are angry and upset at how broken the system is and yet the media does everything it can to ensure that the winners are the ones who most guarantee the least amount of change. I think we’re past the time in American politics where anything short of millions of people of streets can effect much change, and we saw before the idiotic invasion of Iraq that our corporate media will even do its best to ignore and dismiss that.

So, in other words, it doesn’t matter who actually wins or loses in Iowa or even New Hampshire, let alone Michigan. What matters most is what a small group who attend each other’s cocktail parties in the upscale suburbs of Washington D.C., the “chattering class” if you will, decide. They will set up the expectations and they will decide how well the candidates performed against their false expectations and they will control the debates and manufacture a win for their side. No matter what, We The People lose.

For years, people in the other 48 states have decried the influence of two small, mostly white states in our political process which helps to further restrict the national debate by controlling which candidates are even seen as viable in a national election. The time has come to break the system and I applaud those in Michigan who stood up and did their best despite the fact that it backfired and now Michigan and Florida voters have lost the ability to fully participate in the system. Since we never really got a say in the process until it was mostly decided we really haven’t lost much, if anything.

I’d like to think in the next four years we’ll have figured out a better process- though we seem headed for a series of randomly selected, alternating regional primaries which may or may not be an improvement. However, given the fact that the entrenched interests are making serious money off the system as it exists now, the only way things change is if they change in a way that makes the Presidential election an even bigger revenue stream for the big media powers.

There is a slight outside chance that the people can have an influence larger than the media and select candidates willing to step up, listen to the people, lead, and change the corrupt system in place. WE can be the fly in the ointment. It is that small hope that keeps me pressing on. In 2004, the compressed primary season paved the way for a surprise showing for both John Kerry and John Edwards in Iowa (fueled by a desperate Gephardt campaign attacking Howard Dean which helped create the opening- something which could well happen in the GOP field this time, most likely for John McCain as Romney and Huckabee slug it out) that propelled them onto the national ticket. With an even more compressed selection process in place this time, I fear the possibilities are even greater than an early win will prove to be decisive and that only one or two states will get any real say (fueled by the media insistence that any other candidates step down only serves to speed us toward the general election which equals money for the big media companies). There’s a slim chance that an “outsider” candidate could win big early and use the condensed schedule to propel themselves to a surprising victory, but I wouldn’t bet on that happening. In fact, that's my primary concern...