Science Talk

minerva · Guest

This presidential primary campaign season started out with innumerable
candidates, not much different from each other. In the Democratic Party,
it was more a question of who could hog the microphone and television
cameras during the debates, who could string long sentences together
with verbal acuity, and who could mesmerize the media into becoming the
most obviously biased in this writer's political memory, except any time
when Richard Nixon was a candidate.

In the early stages, it was the wonderment of why the moderators asked
more questions of those who were deemed the leaders and let them go on
ad infinitum, while other candidates who gave short and to the point
responses, lost their chance to charm anyone. As a viewer and someone
who prefers balanced reporting and coverage, this writer found it
frustrating to see a few candidates glibly hog the limelight, and in the
following days, the news was all about those few. The others were
forgotten, seldom heard from and seldom seen.

This year, the elections have become less about the candidates'
positions on subjects and more about the talking heads of television and
radio shows. They speak and give their prognostications and the numble
heads listen and like sponges soak it in and give it back to poll
takers. It is a disgusting season for political junkies because the
campaigns have been all junk and little substance.

As the primary season has progressed, if you can call what is happening
progress, the number of candidates quickly shrank to the few who managed
to acquire primary wins and delegates. As a front runner, Barack Obama,
emerged, thanks to the support of 80% and more of Afro-American voters,
he also captured the support of the talking heads. None of whom would
dare call that overwhelming almost exclusive support for one of their
own as racism. A large segment of the pro-Obama media then began to tell
the only other Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, who also has
almost 50% of the Democratic electorate to get out of the race, with
verbal excuses that mimic the propaganda of the front runner's campaign.

Without the voting delegates of Michigan and Florida, and an election
primary that has not evoked as of this date, the clear uncontested
winner, Barack Obama intends to declare himself the Democratic nominee
this week at the close of the next primaries on Tuesday, May 20. At that
point, he might have reached the magic number that gives him the
nomination - provided that there are no changeovers to Mrs. Clinton.
There will be much merry-making by his supporters, although it is not
clear that Hillary will immediately give up.

Clinton and her campaign directors have said they will continue their
campaigning into or up to the convention. Whatever motives she may have
to go on in the face of the overbearing Obama steam rolling campaign
machine, she does have to keep the money coming in to get her campaign
out of the red, financially. Supporters are not as likely to give to a
candidate who has already lost or has quit, so, for no other reason than
to get donations, she is expected to continue.

The success of Obama is also in large part due to the media who provided
him with free television time on almost every newscast, and the
innumerable guest appearances he was afforded on many news, talk and
celebrity programs. Prior to one of the recent remaining primary
elections in Indiana and North Carolina, the NBC correspondent, Tim
Russert, gave him an entire Sunday morning hour to discourse at length
uninterrupted and answer some soft ball questions with no opponent to
argue back or debate whatever answers he gave. It was sad day in
journalism to have such a disgraceful exhibition of bias on the part of
a major news organization. Given what has taken place in the past 6
months, the general election will probably hold more of the same.

Republicans do not stand a chance in the face of such media bias.