Will Hillary be Obama's running mate, with Biden going to State if they win? Will Romney wrap things up on Super Tuesday, or will there be a brokered Republican convention, with Ron Paul as kingmaker? Will Democrats take back the House but lose the Senate?
Who knows? Who cares?
It makes sense, of course, to care about what actually happens. Who will pick the next Supreme Court Justices, whether people with pre-existing conditions will be able to get health insurance, if women will be kissing their reproductive rights goodbye: Plenty of crucial consequences will depend on who wins and who loses.
But predicting what will happen in November has to be one of the biggest wastes of time since the last Adam Sandler movie you saw. It really doesn't matter what any of us thinks.
OK, here's the exception: If a prediction motivates you to write a check or knock on doors, then the psychology of prophecy might make a difference to the outcome of an election. For some people, contributing time or money to a campaign -- and that's what counts, not palaver -- requires believing how some talk radio gasbag or cable "strategist" says it will all play out.
But for most people, speculating about what's going to happen next, imagining different scenarios, finding signs in Super PACs and portents in polls -- it's pretty much all entertainment. Following politics is fun the way following sports is fun. No one really knows whether Wake Forest or UConn will make the Final Four, but half the enjoyment of March Madness is pretending that you do. Who you're rooting for or betting on will have no impact on who will win the championship, but that doesn't diminish the pleasure to be had from predictions. As long as you recognize that anticipating the twists and turns of the presidential race is the political equivalent of picking brackets, it's a harmless hobby.
On the other hand, the political media believe that their job is to make us ravenous for each new installment of the melodrama. Without campaign cliffhangers every 20 minutes, there's no reason to stay tuned to this channel or to refresh that Web page. Because ratings and clicks are what keep the news business in business, there's a premium on captivating our attention and an urgency to making everything seem urgent.
You'd think we'd wise up. After living through a few election cycles, you'd think we'd have figured out that the characters are more important than the plot. You'd think we'd demand more airtime for covering issues and less for hyping suspense. And by issue journalism, I don't mean stenography, I mean accountability. Journalism doesn't return the First Amendment's favor by giving campaigns a free megaphone. Citizens are bombarded by talking points incessantly; what's needed are more and better bullshit detectors. But what we get instead is, "Tonight is a make or break moment for Rick Perry." Looking back, it's easy to say, Herman Cain? Really? But which networks are now doing to "Obamacare is a government takeover of the healthcare system" what they failed to do to 9-9-9?
It's no mystery why we're suckers for stories. Our species loves narratives. Tell me "once up on a time," and I won't leave till I know the ending. Tell me "it was a dark and stormy night," and the neurons in my brain are on fire. Scheherazade saved her own life by embedding stories within stories. If she'd told "Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp" all the way to the end, at dawn the king would have had her killed like the thousand virgins before her. Instead, she nested "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" within "Aladdin," and "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor" within "Ali Baba," and so on night after night, and the king was putty in her hands.
TV's Road to the White House soap opera is a pale substitute for One Thousand and One Nights, so it's impressive what a little brass and drum theme music and some you-won't-want-to-miss-this framing can do to turn another day of asinine campaign coverage into a thriller. Paying close attention to it gives us the illusion of doing our patriotic duty, adding a civic virtue to keeping current that watching NCAA hoops can't provide.
In that kind of media world, when we bump into one another at the real or virtual water cooler, it's perfectly natural to quiz each other about what's going to happen next. Do you think Romney's going to pick Rubio? What are the odds that Obama will wuss out on the Bush tax cuts? It's in the candidates' interests to spend their time selling messages, and it's in the networks' interests to spend their time selling audiences to advertisers. But I'm not sure it's in the public interest for the rest of us to be deputized as cable news anchors, and as guests on each other's imaginary shows.
This is my column from The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. You can read more of my columns here, and e-mail me there if you'd like.
Follow Marty Kaplan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/martykaplan
The two top national vote getters in the entire country are Democrats.
The pair, of course, is Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
The word SWEEP comes to mind.
President Obama indeed is on track for re-election but when the day comes by a close vote, very close. And hardly enough to garner majorities BOTH the Senate and the House, a tall order in anyone’s book, yes, but entirely possible.
A Democratic SWEEPm though, is entirely possible, that is, if Democrats take advantage of their good fortune in having the two top vote getters in the nation and pair them at the TOP OF THE TICKET.
Barack Obama for President.
Hillary Clinton for Vice President.
Just think about what is at stake come November:
Not only continued improvemen¬t in the jobs market, but just as well affordable health care, a healthy and thriving Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security guaranteed for the next 75 years at least, better elementary and secondary schools and schooling and more affordable higher education, tough surveillan¬ce of Wall Street and its banking and corporate clients, energy independen¬ce, renewed environmental protections, campaign finance reform, fairer taxation and a closing of the income gap. For starters.
Yes.
Barack Obama for President.
Hillary Clinton for Vice President.
Happy days can be here again!
"Bubble-headed bleach blond has been accurate on her predictions _____ percent of the time."
But do I follow the current political reporting because I find it entertaining in the same way I might find watching the movie of the week or a sporting event entertaining? Hardly. Neither of those activities creates waves of nausea in the same way that watching our political culture unfolding and disintegrating does. No, I follow it in horror and only because I see so much of what I believe in and what I think people have struggled to achieve eroded in part by the kind of complacency that, at bottom, is reinforced by this article.
At the end of the day, the author essentially concludes that the whole current political debacle is ennobled to the extent that it prompts people to go out and "write a check" or "knock on doors"? Heck, I'm not voting for Obama because I like him all that much, or because I think his policies are really designed to help the middle class and the less fortunate, or because he is less of a politician than the others, or because he is not owned by the pernicious effects of money in politics just like all the rest. I'm doing it because the alternative is so much worse.
And then at the same moment, 10,000 people show up in Moscow, which is a miniscule percentage of the population of even Moscow, must less all of Russia, and HIllary Clinton tell su this is a rebellion!
I could not even pray to God if I swallowed this disgusting show of OUTRAGEOUS lies and raw force.
"LINDSAY LOHAN GOES TO JAIL" or "NATIONAL DEBT GROWS BY ONE TRILLION"
You guessed it!
Anastasia
http://anastasiastoryteller.blogspot.com/.