Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Primary postscript: Horse race uber alles


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No wonder too many of us still think we don't know what politics is all about:

...coverage overall in 2008 has so far focused largely on the horse race.

Fully 78% of the stories studied between January 1 and the first week of May have focused on political matters, such as who won the latest primary.

By contrast, policy stories made up 7% of the stories, personal matters 7%, and the candidates' public record, 2%. And few major storylines stand out.

Pew Research Center.
May 29, 2008

Or rather, no wonder we are easily distracted by lies and bigoted nonsense such as "Muslims will kill Obama because he converted to Christianity" or "Hillary Clinton cackles." Most folks would have had to dig for anything but this fluff or delegate counts.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A horse race - exactly - and right - I know nothing about what the candidates will actually do (would have done). Now that Hillary is "no longer with us" I have no idea what to expect from Obama (little record) or McCain as he has changed horses a bit. Great post! I used to go to the races when I was a kid as my brother-in-law had race horses. If you stand too close to the track you get mud in your face...