Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Blue Ohioan Is Back Up

Blue Ohioan founder Anthony Fossaceca just posted an impassioned argument for Hillary Clinton, hopefully reviving the long-dormant blog. The post makes me a little wistful about what could have been -- passionate supporters focusing on each candidates strengths. Instead we got Hillary nutcrackers and dismissive rants about Barack the "Unity Pony." Most unfortunate.

And unfortunate that circumstances didn't permit Anthony to post sooner. As I wrote in his comments:

    [T]his post . . . was a great argument three months ago. If Toxic Susie had written like this, Blue Ohioan would have remained readable.

    But the election is what it is. It's not impossible for Hillary to win, but it is impossible for her to win without overturning the clear will of the voters, thus tearing the party apart. Aside from some sharp-elbowed tactics and winking approval of the race bias against her opponent, what really has Obama's supporters in an uproar is that continuing to press her case is damaging the party and successfully pressing her case would be disastrous.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking about the complaint from Hillary supporters about the pro-Obama/anti-Hillary bias in the media. There is probably something to it, or at least more than is within my biased perception (and probably less than the pro-Hillary biased perception.) Nonetheless, it's all one with a flawed pro-Hillary electability argument that boils down to: Obama has little going for him except his charisma and political skill which has generated a core of wildly passionate followers, tons of money in small donations and favorable media coverage. Which is too bad because Hillary is more electable.

To which the discerning reader says, "Huh?"

CORRECTED
With the link.

3 comments:

Eric Mansfield said...
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Eric Mansfield said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eric Mansfield said...

So many people claim there's a media bias, but I believe when the political think tanks analyze the media coverage in its entirety they'll find it was more balanced than many perceive.

The media pressure on Hillary has been constant because from day one, she was the favorite. FAR AND AWAY the favorite. So shouldn't the media fires stay lit?

The pressure on Obama has grown as his candidacy has. Does it make for a better story to have the longshot, underdog take the lead and pull the upset? Sure it does. But you don't need the media to tell you that.

In short, the "unusual" is much more interesting than the "usual."

Obama's rise has been "unusual" when it comes to young political candidates on a national stage. The media isn't so much biased in providing coverage of his success versus Clinton's shortcomings as much as it's reporters simply trying too hard to find the right adjectives to describe what few thought was possible a year ago. When they do that, it makes the media appear biased towards Obama.

That's my two cents .. Eric