Digital Analogue: Political comments

February 09, 2004

Political comments

I'm getting ever so tired of the media treatment of the Dean campaign. He continues to do considerably better than the Edwards and Clark campaigns, and yet he gets virtually no mention. Headlines roar: "Kerry wins again!" They fail to note when Dean takes a third of the delegates. Currently Dean has almost half as many delegates won as Kerry---and more than twice as many as the next closest competitor, John Edwards. Putting that in perspective, Kerry still has less than a fifth of the delegates he'd need for a majority.

The only candidate with a significant nationwide campaign so far has been Dean, and to a lesser extent, Kerry. The rest have been always just focussed on the next couple states to hold a primary or caucus. This would be a big advantage for Dean if the media didn't keep acting as if (and occasionally saying that) he was already out of the race.

When I go to the CNN results for, say, Washington state, why does the "status" column unequivocally put a checkmark next to Kerry's name? This isn't the final election, and the states are not winner-take-all---if you let yourself look closer at the table, you'll see that Dean got almost 40% of the delegates from Washington! Yet the media chalks it up as a loss, ignores the rest of the story, and talks some more about Janet Jackson's boob.

In other news, the Bush is a deadbeat story seems to have resurfaced; let's see if it can take off this time.

"Abstinence-only sex ed may be stupid and may not work, but it is the only possible option for a lot of folks who have a certain set of beliefs. To fundies, nothing matters more than sex. Once you understand this, you will understand the insanity surrounding homosexuality, abortion, movie ratings, and sex ed. It's all about the sex. It's always about the sex." --Michael Kimmitt

Posted by blahedo at 6:13pm on 9 Feb 2004

Comments

I've seen at least one analyst who noted that Dean took a stand against Big Media in one interview last year, and that shortly after that negative media commentary about Dean started to pick up. Perhaps what we are seeing is the Fourth Estate trying to destroy that which they perceive would prevent them from becoming stronger. Posted by kelly at 10:58pm on 9 Feb 2004

Dean may have more delegates than the other non-Kerry candidates, but that's only including non-pledged delegates. Edwards currently has nearly three times the popular vote Dean has and more pledged delegates. Dean has also failed to carry a single state. How exactly has Dean done "considerably better" than the Edwards and Clark campaigns? Posted by Chris at 11:54am on 11 Feb 2004

It is including non-pledged delegates, but they count too. On Edwards' lead, well, to be fair, he did increase his lead in popular vote considerably between when I posted and when you posted. :) I refuse to argue on the basis of "carrying" a state, though. It's a meaningless term in a proportional system---you can "carry" a state with 51% or for that matter 40% of the vote, or you can "carry" it with 90%; and you can "fail to carry" a state with 49% or with 5%. The numbers very much affect the delegates, though, and neglecting them makes an argument irrelevant. Posted by blahedo at 9:50pm on 11 Feb 2004

I agree that the media is dissing Dean, but you're not being fair to Edwards; his campaign is currently in second, with Dean clawing at him from behind. Posted by Kimmitt at 1:38pm on 12 Feb 2004