The unexpected fork in the road of a primary potentially going the distance has sent the media into a tailspin. Used to the idea of instant gratification in regards to elections, the 24 hour news stations (as well as their network forefathers) have seemingly forgotten that they are in the business of telling the news as it is Instead, they have gone for conjecture and speculation, only muddying the waters for the people who are still looking to vote for a prospective candidate.
The primaries were built to go the distance, to allow the candidates to seep into the collective conscious in a direct correlation to the power of choice, the power of a democracy, built on the idea that if every person in every state of the union were given the opportunity, they could decide who would lead their party into the general election. In theory, the primary process is the culmination of what the voting process could be if left purely to the masses, an unpredictable force that disregards exit polls, media prediction and at times, pure logic.
All of this has been going on for a while, but it really came to the fore with Clinton's win in Pennsylvania, one that had been anything but unexpected, yet suddenly it was pegged as some surprise comeback. She had been favored to win by as much as 20 points in some polls, leaving this sudden adulation by the media as reeking of revisionism. Yes, the media had at times been overwhelmingly for Barack Obama when they should have been a neutral party, but such a sudden shift in the pendulum becomes disorientating at best, deceitful at worst. No matter how they spin it, Clinton was never the underdog in Pennsylvania, nor was she ever the underdog coming into this election, but the media (and by extension, her campaign advisors and mouthpieces) has perpetuated this myth, the same way they force many of the misnomers about both candidates, by focusing on gossip and what their campaign does, instead of discussing of potential policy ideas and capability.
What appears to be happening is a sense of flawed logic and lazy journalism; taking press releases from the candidates as news instead of doing the investigation required by hard news. The Clinton camp has continued the notion that because Obama cannot win the big states, then he cannot win the election against John McCain, something that the media has picked up on and pushed with veracity, without ever stopping to thing of the logic behind what is being said. Those wins in the larger states weren't exactly blowouts, but the wins by Obama in the smaller states were, at the very least, intriguing. If one takes history into account, with the dislike of the Clintons in the “red states,” a Clinton victory in the general election in these areas is a pipe dream, whereas Obama can conceivably win in a few of those states. As for the larger states (i.e. California, New York) that Clinton has won in the primaries, these are the traditional blue states, ones that the Democrats will most likely win in this election, no matter who is running. The media and the Clinton campaign's pushing of the idea that Obama would not win those states in the general election is foolish and shortsighted, without any nods to the voting history of those respective states, and to continue to push these ideas amongst the public is misleading at best.
The biggest bone of contention amongst the media seems to be about the length of the primary process. First there was the needless and wholly inappropriate demand that Clinton leave the race, something that is nonsensical in the face of what is at stake. The system was built for this sort of race, so to demand one candidate step down is foolish. Now, a myth of a division within the Democratic Party has arisen, giving the opportunity for some pundits to pass along the idea that voters whose chosen candidate does not win the primary will jump ship to the Republican party. Again, all of this is speculation and random prophesizing without proper facts to back it up. While a discerning voter should always vote the candidate and not the party, there is such a separation between where the Republicans and the Democrats on the issues that face the nation, and as such, if someone is willing to give up their Democratic allegiance based on their chosen candidate not getting the nomination, then that person could very well leave at the slightest mud slinging once the general election process begins.
Therefore the core Democratic party is really at little danger from being completely alienated if one or the other becomes the nominee. But, a real division can (and most likely will) occur if the super-delegates are allowed to decide the vote. If they back up the winner of the popular vote, then all should be fine, unless the opposite were to occur, then all of the talks of racism or sexism that have been swirling around the media would have new life, leaving the Democrats at a huge risk of alienating their own base in a time when they need as little problems as possible.
The mud slinging and conjecture is par for the course in an election, especially when it comes from specific campaigns. But, the media has a responsibility to discern what is going on, giving it straight to electorate without pandering to ratings and the advertising dollar. With so much at stake in this election, it becomes absolutely critical for the media to make sure the public knows what is fact and opinion. Otherwise, a misinformed voting public may as well be a nonvoting one.
