Democrats: should the media choose our candidate?

"I find that whenever I or anyone else mentions a candidate who the media has not called a front runner, people respond, sometimes Democrats but mostly not, and say that person doesn't have a chance. Why?"

Polling is ongoing and increasingly sophisticated. They not only poll for positives, "who do you like," they also poll for negatives, "Who don't you like?" Candidates with strong "negatives' will have a difficult time of it.

The most committed primary voters are those representing the extreme wing of their respective parties. This makes it tough going for those with moderate, centrist views. Note what happened to the guy that challanged Lieberman in Ct.

"Does the media seem to have a vested interest in seeing the candidate from a particular political party win?"

The media has a vested interest in ratings and circulation. Controversy sells. Scandel sells.

But don't you agree, AstroGirl, that those who analyze political matters for a living may have some idea as to relative strengths in terms of $$ raised, organization, grass roots support, etc.? I agree that the media, and those journalists who comprise it, are not experts by any means. Often, they are simply parroting something they've heard someone else say.

Greg, they may have more idea than some of us about those things, but the truth is, the news media has figured out that entertaining us is enough. They don't pay reporters to go out and do investigative journalism anymore, because we don't demand it. Often they are parroting what they have heard somewhere, and often they don't go out to the grassroots and check with people, but report what they hear around Washington D.C.

WM H. I agree with much of what you say, but I would encourage you to look into recent media consolidation. There has been a level of consolidation, that is, the same companies buying up multiple media outlets, that was previously not allowed by law. It has been Republican policy to allow that consolidation, therefore I think the people who own those big media conglomerates are beholden to the Republican party to some degree.

Excellent point, AstroGirl. We pollsters/consultants, admittedly, are making recommendations to clients given the competitive environment, which (as you say) is largely affected by a rather shallow media -- at this time juncture, certainly.

I want to add something that I think I should have said in the original article, except I was trying to ask some questions rather than draw conclusions.

I was told by many people in the 2004 primary that they didn't really like Kerry all that much, but they thought he was a viable candidate because of his military service, yada, yada, yada. Where were they getting the idea he was a viable candidate? From the media, probably. Now, for some reason I just knew they should be listening to their guts and that his military service would be turned against him because he was an anti-war protester as well.

Did choosing him against many people's better instincts give the Democrats a victory? Well, maybe if the votes were all counted accurately. We don't really know, but for all practical purposes, no.

I'm really sorry to bring that up in case Kerry runs again, but I had to in order to make my point.

So, my conclusion (but I'm open to further discussion):

If you, as a voter, let someone else tell you that a certain person is a viable candidate or is the frontrunner, and you decide to support that person out of a sense of party loyalty or a desire to win, you have just voluntarily relinquished democracy and let someone else cast your vote for you. I guess that's really the crux of the matter, whatever the answer to my questions above.

The trouble is, where do most people get information about candidates? From the media, of course. A few Internet geeks like us will dig a little deeper, but still much of what we read or see is derived either directly or indirectly from Network News or the major newspapers. You can't escape it.
So when you say, "vote for the person you like best" or whatever, that opinion is based on...what the Big Boys want you to think, isn't it?

The aspect of a media conspiracy may be a little over the top (if that's what Bert is saying -- if not, I apologize), but the general points that both Bert and AstroGirl bring up are well taken.

Bert, I agree with you that access to reliable information is a problem. I just saw an advertisement for a new site, http://beta.newstrust.net/ that is trying to help rectify the problem of having reliable information by having members rate the information, but I don't know how that will work out in practice. Anyway, since the best information is available on the internet and some people don't have access to it, it's a problem.

For people who DO have access to the internet, I really recommend going to each candidate's individual web site and reading whatever speeches or policy papers they have posted there. This might sound like you're just looking at their own advertising, but if you compare the candidates this way, you find a lot of things out. For one thing, if they don't have policy papers with specific ideas that sound like good ideas, why would you vote for them?

Another good thing anyone can do if they live in a state that will have any impact on choosing the candidates, is go hear them speak in person.

Access to information is not as much of a problem if you try to become an active participant in finding the information.

I would also add that you shouldn't assume people in other parts of the country are so much different than you are. People in California told me they didn't really like Kerry, but they'd vote for him in the 2004 primary because he was the frontrunner and they thought people in the Midwest would like him because of his military service. Well, guess what? The people in the Midwest didn't like him any better than they did. So it's important to trust your own perceptions, too.

I heard a lecture by Michael Lerner that another Gather member turned me on to. There's a link somewhere in the comments on one of my recent articles, but I don't feel like finding it now. Anyway one of the most amazing parts of the lecture was when he was telling about how some group he was working with talked about a plan for a more peaceful society with Methodists in the midwest and they said "yes, but it'll never work because only Methodists in our area really want that." Then, they talked to people in New York about the same thing and those people said, "yes, but it'll never work because only people on the coasts really want that." So, we are not all so different as we might think. If you have a bad feeling about a candidate, chances are someone else will to.

I just really want people to decide for themselves who they would really like to see representing them. Don't let anyone else choose your candidate.

As for the aspect of possible media conspiracy, it wouldn't have to be much of a conspiracy, considering how few people actually control the media at this point. Most all the radio stations, TV stations, and newspapers are owned by only a few multimedia conglomerates. And when you have a vice president at Fox News telling his reporters how to spin things in a memo, is it really that much of a stretch to assume the executives in other media companies also instruct reporters on the desired spin?

At the very least, all the media companies report each other's stories practically verbatim, and when they're treating Fox News as if it's a real news organization, which it's not, there's a problem.

Gregg,

Not conspiracy in the "moonbat-political" sense that the word tends to be used today; but perhaps reality ranges from a "not so subtle collusion" and competition for ratings and profits, to outright influence peddling and outright buying. Rupert Murdoch, last I heard was hedging his bets on Clinton/McCain and made no bones about it -- and before that he backed Tony Blair--just as an example. I think I get what you're saying though.

Astro Girl,

Really good article. I would go so far as to say that media is more than beholden to certain interests; more like a nice double loop --media owns info, is in turn owned. Polls are also a double loop or double-edged sword; i.e., learned in research a long time ago that it's almost impossible not to be a bit owned by what you are presumably objectively observing. So, whether we like to admit it or not, we're not at all immune from the influence of the data results, not to mention whether we can rely on the integrigy of the process in the first place. There are polls and then there are polls, all claiming to be right on and scientific.

Best antidote of all? A little diligent effort to get answers and our gut instinct for whether "so-called "facts" are right or wrong--or a little off--from having been "spun," "filtered" or outright compromised. Check and double check -- but let's face it the electorate may or may not do that. Critical and crucial events, I would think, drive that process.

Missy, thanks for your intelligent comment. If you check in here again, could you elaborate on "it's almost impossible not to be a bit owned by what you are presumably objectively observing"? I think I know what you mean, but I'm not sure in what way you become owned.

I want to illustrate my point a bit further. I often see the media making claims like this one, in a sentence from a recent article in the Washington Times: "Mrs. Clinton remained the clear front-runner in her party for 2008 in national polls late last week in a field of nearly a dozen Democratic hopefuls."

Now, it's funny, but in all the times I've heard this claim about who is the front runner, I don't think I've ever seen any reporter cite a specific poll and the specific data that came out of that poll to back up this claim.

Furthermore, I believe I heard pundits starting to say that Senator Clinton was the front runner for 2008 the day after the 2004 election. I doubt there was enough time to do much polling on this, particularly since many polls right up until the 2004 election said that Kerry would or might win. Why would they have been polling about the front runner for a Democratic primary that at least some of the other polls said wouldn't happen?

So, the obvious question is, did the pundits tell loyal Democrats, who may want to support their front runner in a show of party unity, who that front runner is?

Recently, I saw this article, which cites 2 specific polls and indicates that the front runner, at least in Iowa (the very first state to vote), is not who we're being told it is. So, if polls are indeed telling us different things and the pollsters are indeed getting mixed answers, why is the media so sure there's a front runner?

Yes, you are correct. A lot of it is the Rove/Luntz spin machine, but reporters in the MSM should know better than to just repeat what they're told.