Will Democracy Survive the Pundits?

It took me almost a week to gather my thoughts - have you gathered yours?

Looking back, it feels like we survived two media coronations and are back to an election contest worthy of our democracy. The pollsters lost, the voters won. The pundits looked stupid, citizens looked smart. In that first earlier coronation, "realist" pundits and cynical prognosticators decided the "Clinton machine" was unbeatable. Without a single vote cast, a single caucus polled, Hillary was the inevitable IT.

Then came Iowa. The Clinton machine was beatable! The pundits fell in love, hope conquered all, Obama won after all. Not just the caucuses, but the rights to his own media coronation.

Which meant New Hampshire was to be an exercise in confirming the keening pundits and enthralled pollsters. Then voters went to the polls and restored democracy to the process. No outright champions. Another Clinton comeback. McCain, no kid, back too. Obama still a major force. Romney, Edwards and even Huckabee, all still viable, New York mayor Bloomberg making noises about a run.

But tens of millions of votes, nearly all, still to be cast, and a genuine contest in the offing. Who knows, not just beyond Tuesday in Michigan but maybe beyond February 5th even.

There were the expected miscalculations and rhetorical recalls. No, Hillary-haters, saying LBJ took the vision for which MLK gave his life and enacted it as legislation was not racism or one-upmanship. Just a fact, meant to show we need both vision and government leadership to realize dreams, so maybe experience is worth something. No, Obama detractors, he wasn't a cad for saying Hillary was "likeable enough" - just another guy tripping over his gender on the way to trying to be cute. So pay attention to what he's really saying on the issues.

Conclusion? Give Iowa and New Hampshire not to the winners in those states, and certainly not to the pundits who called both elections wrong, but to ordinary American citizens who insist that democracy is not about what we blatherers are saying or what the pollsters say voters are about to do, but only about what they themselves actually do when they cast their votes. Which they will be doing for another couple of weeks - maybe even months. If we let democracy run its course.

Comments

[Fairfloss]

The various factions inside the Democratic party and battling, the same with the Republican party. Most of the media are ideologist and people unable to reason beyond their own status in this country are not helping.

We don't trust anyone any more. The title "liar" has been tossed around so freely it has lost it's meaning.

Meanness rules the day, destroy our competition is the rule of the day. We are sinking like the Titanic and the World is watching.

Before America and her beautiful democracy implodes, we should attempt to do something. I have a feeling it isn't even something political, but something humane.

[AnninCA]

Democracy can survive pundits. What we may not survive is the death of a truly objective press corps.

[Researchguy66]

Pollsters didn't lose. They get paid to conduct polls with newsworthy results so that their clients can sell advertising. While I've seen a lot of handwringing about the polling so far, I haven't seen a reduction in it.

[bbln]

It's true the media is crowning itself the ringmaster of the race here, and trying to intrude between the voter and the canadidates, and it is shameful. And yes, the MSM, are still making this a 2 person race, and as much as I support one of them, I also know the other candidates have gotten the shaft - by the pathetic lens of the media to distort what Americans see.

If is a lesson about the need for reform in the media (as it should have been in 2000), and we can't wait for the GE, and the crowning of the wrong President.

[cktirumalai]

Juries are not allowed to read newspapers or watch television. A proportion of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire seem to have followed this advice voluntarily. To think and feel for oneself apart from what others are supposed to be doing is a valuable quality. And it is as relevant to elections as to anything else.

[Nutcase]

The American people have not yet won. We still have the MSM acting as though the two store-bought candidates represent the scope of our choices in the Democratic Party. The two weakest against McCain, the likely GOP candidate, or Rudy are the ones they have chosen.

Edwards needs to stay in and bring about a deadlock at the convention. It's been a long time since there has been a convention without knowing ahead of time who the nominee was to be but the tradition was that the top contenders were dropped in favor of someone else. Edwards could be that someone else.

[GoCards1978]

What a wonderfully novel idea - let the electorate decide. It's high time to tune out the pundits and the New Hampshire results made that abundantly clear to me.