Letters to the Editor
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All you need is motive
The media has no mind but it has desires. It has no one controlling consciousness, no, but it does have motivations, and as any actor or director or novelist will tell you, motivations are where the action is anyway, the thoughts will follow. The motivations are largely corporate and they're almost entirely about making money.
The focus on the horse race to begin with exists because it creates a spectacle and this makes money. That's the motivation for the mess we have, and in some ways it's all you need to know.
Without it, we could sit down every few years and pick the person who seems most dedicated and effective from among those available, and it could take about three days to decide. It could certainly take a lot less time than it does now anyway.
Almost no one covers the campaigns from the rational perspective, which would be to examine who's best matched to what the citizenry wants and needs. It's almost entirely instead about the viewpoint from the candidate outward, all the discussions are about how she can move this way to attract these people and this is bad for him because he's going to not convince these people, and on and on about essentially who can play the public like a fiddle better than the other, it's entirely about an essentially manipulative and disingenous if not dishonest process.
It's absurd. It's all entirely for the spectacle, and in terms of coverage and the media at least, that's entirely about money.
For a shorter version read Tom Tomorrow's cartoon that just was posted, as usual he nails it best.