Letters to the Editor
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All it means
is that people switched to HRC between the time of the last poll and yesterday.
In a 24/7 TELEVISION news cycle Hillary's tears come right thru the screen and people felt it. It was real emotion, and they got it, and they switched over on the spot. No big mystery. Heart over head. Cynics can't see there, but it's really the same thing Obama generates - a "feeling."
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Jestaplero
So, are the media shaping the outcomes, or having no effect? You seem to be arguing both ways.
It's more complicated than just a "yes-no" proposition. Sometimes journalists do shape the outcome of elections. Sometimes they try and fail. Sometimes voters backlash against them. Other times, journalists exert influence but there are influences greater than what they can muster.
I think they did a lot to disappear Edwards and Ron Paul from the coverage and that had an effect. But they also tried to destroy Hillary and that might have had the opposite effect. They clearly influenced the 2000 election with their hatred of Al Gore and their love of Bush's persona.
Sometimes they succeed. Other times they don't.
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Bill Clinton as baggage
What's truly baggage for Hillary is media's definition of Bill as baggage, not Bill himself. Only when media quits their infotainment role may things improve. And they'll only do that if the audience tunes out. Thank god we can somewhat slack our real news thirst at the internet oasis.
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Re: Crying and Tearing
Producing tears and crying can be caused by a variety of factors: noxious chemical stimuli, mechanical irritants to the eyes, nasal passages and orophrynx, as a reaction to physical or emotional stressors, and as an emotional release. The reaction has no affect on or by cognition in humans.
Ergo, it has no bearing on executive decision-making and higher cognitive function. The meaning(s) ascribed to crying has been ritualized by gender and by social role. That is arbitrary and is not an inherent quality.
No one in the media (traditional and blogospheric, as far as I have yet read) has asked the fundamental question of why this spurious claim (crying implies or equates with impaired executive function) is being advanced by anyone, and why it is not being debunked.
Not to mention, of course, any discussion of substantive issues (love the Charlie Savage executive power example) being ignored en toto.
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Glenn Greenwald's brilliant piece
is a study in how the media sets the agenda, filters information, controls the distribution of concerns and limits the spectrum of admissible debate.
Glenn writes, "Brokaw's sudden, embarrassment-driven request for the media to act differently... will not have the slightest effect on what they do. It can't, because the media stars and their editors and producers who shape coverage aren't capable of anything else. They're selected and in those positions precisely because this is all they're capable of doing."
They are self-selected. It isn't possible to survive in corporate media without having internalized its institutional values. Any one of them will insist that no one tells them what to think.
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Mr. Greenwald, the problem is...it works.
I've been a TV engineer for a couple of decades now. I've seen how news has changed on the local level, and it's reflected in your article.
What reason would these journalists have to change their working technique? It works. The ratings are up. That means ad sales are up. That means news is worth more. That means that news reporters are paid more. In base principle, the news business works because you people, the public, want to see it.
Oh, you bitch about it in Salon, but you still tune in by the millions. And the more lurid it is - whether it's who got raped and killed last night, or who cried during a political speech - the more you love it. You sure aren't flocking to PBS or to BBC News on cable, are you?
Until journalists decide they want to be paid less and be less influential, and who wants to make that choice, this state of journalism won't change. A more practical, but less likely, thing to happen would be a President or some other leader to convince America that they need more serious and less gossipy news out of their hairsprayed Action Reporters. An evangelical President. Someone like, perhaps, Obama or Edwards, if the mood moved them.
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poll tampering
Bradblog was going nuts last night over whether the Diebold machines were tampered with - and, any number of other bloggers were referring/linking back to Brad.
Personally, if one is searching for an explanation, I like the theory of the un-sourced/unnamed New Hampshire resident quoted up thread.
Where's ondelette or Arne? I'm thinking the act of measuring people's intended behavior, affected the behavior the act wanted to measure. Given the New Hampshire resident's experience with poll saturation and inconveniences thereof, the polls themselves has an influence on the outcome. Toss in the media (a show of emotion, "iron my shirt," and the endless wanking), and the discrepancies all seem plausible to me, independent of a Diebold 'malfunction.'
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I try to 'speak' sanely, merrily, and sparingly. Glenn may chastise me. I'll go after this remembrance. Blame Che Pasa.
I'm pretty sure it was John Brown who's last words, just before he was pushed with blindfolds on before he was hung...
paraphrased from faulty recall? "Wow, what a beautiful country!
This is the first time I've been in this beautiful neck of the woods. This is God's country."
Then John Brown was pushed from behind. Mr Brown tripped as he was going up the platform steps to his death.
~My, what a beautiful day to die, we use to say.
That was in the draft-naive-troops to die in Nam.
You realize? I hope.
If you good 'critters' here, and on the other anti-Lie,
and anti-War, ETC., were not HERE defying these GOPS,
I'd cry.
These creeps will pickpocket you after your dead as a stiff and rusted dang doornail.
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Re: Delegates
Since then, the primary has been considered an early measurement of the national attitude toward the candidates for nomination. Unlike a caucus, the primary measures the number of votes each candidate received directly, rather than through precinct delegates. The fact that the primary is based on the popular vote means that it gives lesser-known candidates a chance to pull ahead. Unlike most other states, New Hampshire permits independents, not just registered party members, to vote in a party's primary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire_primary
Apparently NH awards delegates proportionally. The point is, Hillary was written off by the press. Speaking of delegates:
Candidates divvy up NH delegates
The Associated Press
Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama each won nine delegates in New Hampshire's Democratic primary, followed by former Sen. John Edwards with 4 delegates, an AP analysis of primary results shows. All 22 of New Hampshire's delegates to the national convention this summer have been allocated.
Clinton and Obama won the same number of delegates, even though Clinton edged Obama in votes, because New Hampshire awards delegates proportionally, and the vote was relatively close.
In the overall race for the nomination, Clinton leads with 187 delegates, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates. She is followed by Obama with 89 delegates and Edwards with 50.
A total of 2,025 delegates are needed to secure the Democratic nomination...
http://www.kansascity.com/445/story/436458.html