John Amato at Crooks & Liars has a really fantastic post about the media narrative on Hillary - first they crack the puzzle on how to anoint Obama as the presumptive nominee:
The media have figured out how to end the Democratic race. Declaring it over doesn’t work. Urging Hillary Clinton to drop out doesn’t work. Putting Barack Obama on the cover of Time as the nominee doesn’t work.
What does work–ah, this is fiendishly clever–is to simply ignore the race. Many journalists are just moving on. What will become a tsunami of speculation about whom Obama will pick as his running mate is already under way. That’s not to say the MSM isn’t reporting on Hillary’s campaign stops, her $6-million loan to her struggling operation, the trickle of superdelegates toward Obama and similar developments. But we are now treating Obama as The Man.
Now on one hand, there’s some obvious sense in this. Hillary’s campaign is over, and in effect has been over for some time. But on the other hand, the democratic Democratic process continues, and she has a lot of supporters still around - and remember, netroots notwithstanding, tv is still where the action is for most folks in terms of political news. The big danger, through the erasure of Hillary from history, is that the very large number of her voters who’ve been telling pollsters they won’t vote for Obama, are going to have their resentment stoked just at the stage when Hillary herself is segueing to a “vote Obama in the general election” message - the price of maintaining her influence and the Clintonistas’ power within the Democratic Party.
Kim
I’m not sure that Hillary (HRC) is being ignored, at least not by the cable news networks. Both CNN and FOX will give 6 hours + to the West Virginia primary tonight (Larry King Live is coming on at midnight) even though:
* The result is pretty much known, as West Virginia is the US’s poorest mostly white state, and hence a shoo-in for HRC;
* It has 28 delegates, so can’t affect the contest in any meaningful way (North Carolina had 112);
* It will almost certainly go to the Republicans in November, as guns, God and patriotism are big there.
The question of where those who have supported HRC through her campaign go after it is finally wrapped up is a very interesting one, indicating that it will definitely be female voters who will decide the presidency, being 54% of the population and not having an obvious preference towards the Republicans or the Obama-led Democrats.
HRC has attracted 16.6 million votes during the Democrat primaries so that is a pretty sizable chunk of voting support.
It is less the media that are causing her a slow death - the cable news network do great business out of these primaries with such two high profile candidates - than the slow leak of the so-called ’super-delegates’ to Obama, as they sniff the wind of where patronage and contact network may be in the Democratic Party in the near future.
Terry, I’m just reporting Amato’s argument, I guess, which I found interesting. It’s a bit hard to assess it from this distance. But is the cable news coverage playing to an audience of political junkies or the sorts of voters Hillary has been attracting?
I think that there’s a big engagement with the Democrat primaries here. The positive side of what otherwise looks like a pretty deep chasm in the Democrats (Hillary has just won West Virginia 66/27) is that there is a big turnout in all of these states. Both Obama and Clinton are also fundraising about twice as much each as McCain is at present.
The Democrats would argue that, if the two camps can somehow come together, they are looking well placed against what is currently a very damaged Republican party brand, and John McCain’s uncertainty about how far to distance himself from the Bush years while keeping the support of conservatives.
I guess what I’m wondering, Terry, is if the demographics Hillary has done well among - older women, working class white males - are as engaged with the news/net stuff or more traditional voters who receive their cues from mass as opposed to niche media. Would be interested in your take.
I honestly think, Kim, that there is engagement across the board in the U.S. in the Democrat primaries. Over 33 million people have already voted in the Democratic Party primaries for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, and that figure does not count votes for other candidates such as John Edwards or the disputed primaries in Florida and Michigan. Also, at least a million people would have given funds to either Obama or Clinton.
That compares to 13 million who voted in the 2004 Democrat primaries Linked text,_2004. Actual voting figures on the Republican primaries are hard to get, but more people have voted in the Democrat primaries in many of the ‘red’ states (esp. in the Western states) than in the Republican primaries.
With that, there is a lot of interest among all demographics. 13,000 attended the Obama rally in Bloomington four days before the Indiana primary. OK, it’s a college town, but that’s a pretty sizeable chunk of the population. Also, African-Americans are turning out to vote in the remaining primaries in a way that probably doesn’t have precedent. It may be said that this would be inevitable given Obama’s candidacy, but it is far more true now than it was at the beginning of 2008.
The engagement is attributable to three things. First, the length of the campaign. Second, the fact that the closeness of it has meant going to all 50 states for maybe the first time ever, Third, the unique profile of the two candidates and the fact that they are both very, very interesting people, who both have clear weaknesses as well as obvious strengths.