With the resignation of Edwards from the Democratic presidential race, we still have three candidates left standing Clinton, Gravel, and Obama. Oh, you didn't know that there was still a third candidate? Most of the country never knew that there were still five candidates after Biden and Richardson stepped out in Iowa.
My purpose in writing today is not to endorse any of the remaining candidates, but to express my dismay at the watering down of our democracy by the media.
From the beginning, the media had decided that the "horse race" would come down to Hillary Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee. They have had to broaden that picture a bit to include Obama, but they made that segue without ever looking back.
Being a news junkie and watching cable news, I saw most of the so-called debates. I saw who was there and the type of air time they received. I saw who made the network and cable news, and the talking head shows. It has been the Clinton-Obama show for a very long time. For much of the country, there have only been two candidates for a year.
Herein lies the lie, and the demise of representation in the "selection" process. The corporate media did not "lie" outright. They created a fable of "viable" candidates in which they both defined and created "viability." Those outside their picks were left with only face-to-face campaigning, the people's media, and internet campaigning. For those reading this, you likely saw all of this. But what about the 85-90% who saw only the corporate media, and the 75-80% who saw only the network channels?
After the Iowa primary, the Gravel campaign took massive blow of it being announced that he had withdrawn from the race when he had not. For as little coverage as he had received, the lie would allow overlooking him entirely. Even the "progressive" cable token Keith Olbermann announced that Gravel was out (though he has since apologized). Kucinich presented another inconvenience and so the corporate media decided to just exclude him from the "debates" entirely.
Edwards decided to drop out after South Carolina. Now word of explanation has come out that I have seen. He was an invisible presence at the last Democratic "debate" as Clinton and Obama attempted to woo his supporters into their respective camps. While there has been no explanation, I suspect that part of the reason that Edwards withdrew was that he was not getting enough air time of be "viable."
There are those who would argue that the "field" needed to narrow down. Or that we should not waste time or concentration on candidates who do not have a possibility to win. However, for me, there is a totally different level of importance in having a broad and relatively equal field. Namely that a diversity of issues and interests are brought to the discussion. The presidential campaigns are one of the few times when there is a forum and a focus on a discussion of national issues. For many, it is the only time when perspectives other than corporate media framing are presented for people to consider. Shutting out and shutting down those voices dramatically shapes the publics' perception of both issues and solutions.
Clearly money has been a big deal in these campaigns - it always is. However, who gets heard and who does not is not simply an issue of money attracted to a candidate. Publicly financed campaigns are critical, but will be undermined dramatically if the corporate media is not required to provide equal air time to all candidates, and for networks and parties to include all candidates in the forum of debate.
For both the Nevada debate and the South Carolina debate, Kucinich was excluded by the corporate media from participating (even though he had initially been invited). The ruling was essentially that the cable networks are private clubs and they can invite whoever they want to the party. That will be a decision with massive impacts over time - and not simply for political campaigns.
So now there are three Democratic presidential candidates, though the voice has largely narrowed to one and a half as both Clinton and Obama vie for some hypothetical middle of the road.
One possibility would be to break them up, to require local radio and TV stations to be locally owned and operated. It used to be this way.
Another idea is simply to reform our primary electoral system:
What is a political party trying to accomplish with its primaries? Is it not to find the candidate who is most acceptable to the most members of that party? Our current primary elections do not do this, they work to find the one candidate who is the first choice among the most voters.
My suggestion is that a better approach would be for voters to cast votes for not one, but let's say two candidates (maybe more if the field is large). One advantage of this would be that the voter would not be forced to choose between the candidate that the voter really likes and the one that the voter thinks might have a chance of winning (because that's what the corporate media said).
But another advantage is in the area of media behavior. How could the media focus on just two candidates if each voter was to vote for two or three candidates? The media would have to broaden their coverage.
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PrMaine (8 articles, 5 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 284 comments)
on Sunday, February 3, 2008 at 9:58:19 AM
All of the free airtime given to establishment candidates under the guise of "news" and "political debate" should be counted as contributions; either given equally to all, or not at all. Without that campaign finance reforms are meaningless.
The incumbents will never risk their political future to pass real campaign finance reform. The only way to get something like that passed is by a ballot initiative voted on by the American people. Mike Gravel's National Initiative gives us the chance to do that.
Thanks for speaking out.
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Shawn in Louisville (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 8 comments)
on Sunday, February 3, 2008 at 11:02:32 AM
Your question is a contradiction in terms. When you say
"corporate media," you are talking about organizations whose primary imperative is maximizing profits. This is better accomplished by subverting democracy, & introducing the type of corruption that's systematically favorable to corporate control of society.
There's an intrinsic & unavoidable conflict between "democracy" and domination by private power. The latter will win out every time, in a society where political consciousness is too low to grasp the nature of this intrinsic conflict, & to resolve it in a way that consciously & unambiguously values democracy for the many, over the accumulation of great private wealth for the few.
To put it simply, one must have most of society's members understanding the conflict, & demanding that democracy be valued over private wealth accumulation. There must be no shying away from clear perception of the conflict -- shying away is equivalent to surrender. // The very reason the MSM feeds us such a constant barrage of dishonest propaganda (such as you sketched out in your article on the primaries) is to keep the population confused & disoriented enough, that the general level of consciousness remains low.
More than anything, the battle is one of ideas. As long as the public is kept confused & disoriented, their rulers can get away with virtually anything.
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Richard Mynick (2 articles, 3 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 1121 comments)
on Sunday, February 3, 2008 at 11:05:06 AM
That it is all rigged? That corpstream media feeds the corporations that embolden them to High levels of prosperity?
That the candidate that shuns the big money (banks, Pharma, Big $ lobbyists) hasn't a chance in hell in being a president?
That Obama is our best choice for Democrat (between Hillary and him) and my fear is Obama will be just a puppet if elected?
On the republican side, Israel's Mossad(sp) supports McCain. My fear is McCain will get it as he is the perfect puppet. Israel gets their way in our country. Check history out.
It would be wonderful if Americans could stand up against Corporate America; however, Americans are complicit, and also so pre-occupied with working twice as hard for half the pay.
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shirley reese (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 278 comments)
on Sunday, February 3, 2008 at 11:39:09 AM
