The reason we should change polical reporting is that our current sort of political reporters can't be trusted.

We know, for instance, that Hillary Clinton is the sort of politician who will plant a question in the audience, get caught and then not apologize.

Presumably you have a secret source that proves that Sen. Clinton was lying when she said that this had been done without her knowledge, and you would be prepared to explain why "This behavior not appropriate, and I will take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again" doesn't qualify as an expression of contrition. This kind of slime masquerading as fact and substituting for analysis of any actual facts or policy positions is an banner example of what's wrong with politicial journalism today.

I also don't think you should be deriding anyone who might want to look at a candidate's website or books to inform how they should vote. That is, after all, almost the sole location where descriptions of policy are to found these days, since policy has been radically dumbed down or eradicated in modern political reporting. You should read what Paul Krugman has to say about this subject:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/on-coming-across/

You write that people don't have any time or interest in the details of health care proposals. You know this how? Because Russert, Williams, Matthews, Blitzer and such spend all their debate and other time asking a candidates's favorite prayer, cartoon character or sytlist? But, to paraphase Maureen Dowd, no columnist or political reporter wants to write about-much less even learn someting about-healt care. Ick, what does that have to do with whether someone is funny or likeable.

It is ironically appropriate that your hero Halperin in decrying the way he was mislead into how to cover an election makes up the fact that Clinton was an underdog to Bob Dole.

WHS

From the article:

We know, for instance, that Hillary Clinton is the sort of politician who will plant a question in the audience, get caught and then not apologize. We know that Mitt Romney is the sort of politician who structures his life like a major corporation and sees politics as a marketing problem. We know that Barack Obama is committed to the untested, and perhaps foolhardy, notion that he can move the nation beyond political partisanship.

Funny thing, though: If indeed we do *know* any of these things, we only "know" them via what's been reported, and how those plotlines have been reported.

As pointed out by the first letter, you're making a huge leap of logic that Hillary was directly involved in that PR blunder. We don't *know* how Romney truly "views politics as a marketing problem" (whatever the hell that means) -- that's just the impression some reporters gave us when they were covering the horse race aspects of the campaign (which may or may not include taking talking points delivered by Romney or his staffers!). And Obama's desire to appeal to something beyond partisanship was nothing if not a strategy to define his candidacy on his terms lest he get pigeonholed into some sort of caricature that would have otherwise been delivered to use via the typical horse race coverage.

Campaigns are huuuuuuuuuuge organizations, mostly about as organized as an ill child's diaper. But according to the campaign-focused reporting we've been force-fed, we're supposed to hold the candidate accountable for every single word and action taken on his/her behalf by a coterie of often borderline-competent and/or sleep deprived lackeys. All the while, very little if any in-depth coverage is given to the policies each candidate proposes, and even less to the gross inconsistencies, non-answers, and doublespeak they expect us to buy in their now-required "everyone must love me" approach to politics. And this is supposed to help us decide who should be elected as the de facto leader of the world?

At the end of the day, campaign coverage all becomes this unbelievably futile exercise in circular logic, and then y'all wonder why the vast majority of Americans tune this crap out.

Why are we still being subjected to all of these myths-by-assertion? Is this 'Hardball' with Chris Matthews?

this is an improvement on coin-flipping. but it's easy to improve on coin-flipping.

suppose a candidate wrote a short book: "policies i will implement if elected". about 10,000 words would be enough, with a 1000 word synopsis. suppose more than half the reps and senators of this party were willing to endorse these policies. the electorate would know what it's getting, wouldn't they?

but this doesn't happen. the electorate doesn't want policies, they want a nice guy to look after them, or a strong guy to protect them, or a tough guy to keep the losers in their side of town.

this is the politics of the tribe, amplified by electronics, but not evolved. maybe trial by campaign is just ape politics, in a suit.

When Mr. Halperin asserted that political reporters don't get it, he proved his point nicely right there for us in his article by holding up Bush as an example of election success. It will be remembered that Bush LOST the popular vote in 2000. After the campaign in 2000, MORE people voted for Gore than for Bush. In 2004 Bush won again but only due to massive electoral fraud and vote rigging in Ohio.

He proves it again by acting if Clinton wasn't in real terms, i.e. the wealth, health and happiness of your average American, a spectacularly successful president. Especially if you wanted to convince your special lady that its ok to get a knobber on the side.

Keen political observer and esteemed newsman Schieffer was the first to point out that Al Gore was disqualified for our nation's highest honor because folks despised the idea of sitting down to chew the fat with him over a beer. However, we later learned that perhaps we had actually been misled by the media, because the fact was, Bush could not sit down and drink a beer with Americans, because he has a recovering alcoholic.