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They're leading contenders because both Iowa and New Hampshire voters overwhelmingly said so. On the Democratic side, there's Obama and Clinton on one level, Edwards is the spoiler, and then there's everyone else - it's not even close after actual voting has taken place. The media is simply reflecting that. We can have a chicken-or-the-egg argument about whether the media has been pushing one candidate over another and that's why people are voting for them, but clearly on the Republican side, the media didn't push Mike Huckabee at all prior to Iowa yet he's now a legitimate contender (even if he's still a longshot) because he actually won something - the media can't deny you if you've actually won. Kucinich has only received a handful of votes in actual voting, including a New England state where his liberal views are most likely to resonate.
There have been countless debates over the past year which included every single candidate even if they were polling in the single digits. As a practical matter, those debates were pretty useless - all you had were 8 or 9 people ramming through their talking points with little or no chance for follow-up since there were too many people on the stage and everyone was supposed to get equal time. That's fine when no caucus or primary has been held. Now that we've gone through Iowa and New Hampshire, I think it's reasonable to say who is a legitimate contender and who isn't on the Democratic side (the Republican side is still way out of whack, so I think someone like Ron Paul, who I have to make clear that I do NOT support since it seems like every other post is a troll for him, had a more legitimate beef of not being invited to the Fox News debate in New Hampshire). Therefore, it's much more important to have a more in-depth debate amongst the true contenders at this point in the game than to give some faux impression of "fairness".
I can sit here and say that I'm going to keep trying out for the Chicago Bulls as a basketball player or American Idol as a singer no matter what anyone else says, just as I can say that I'm going to run for President "and stay in the race all the way to the convention" no matter how the voting is going. That doesn't mean anyone should be giving me the time of day in any of those scenarios if it's clear that I don't have a legitimate shot. The Bulls cut people in tryouts, American Idol cuts people in tryouts, and Iowa and New Hampshire cut people in the Presidential race, whether or not the candidates want to face reality.
Oh come on!! They were front runners ( according to the media) LONG before any primaries they were the media darlings. I didn't even hear about the other candidates until the primaries, except for how McCain was dead in the water during the summer. I had to go investigate for myself to find out who else was running. And who says they wouldn't have a shot if the Media would let them be heard. Again I have had to go investigate other sources in order to get info on the non " front runners"
They're leading contenders because both Iowa and New Hampshire voters overwhelmingly said so. On the Democratic side, there's Obama and Clinton on one level, Edwards is the spoiler, and then there's everyone else - it's not even close after actual voting has taken place. The media is simply reflecting that. We can have a chicken-or-the-egg argument about whether the media has been pushing one candidate over another and that's why people are voting for them, but clearly on the Republican side, the media didn't push Mike Huckabee at all prior to Iowa yet he's now a legitimate contender (even if he's still a longshot) because he actually won something - the media can't deny you if you've actually won. Kucinich has only received a handful of votes in actual voting, including a New England state where his liberal views are most likely to resonate.
There have been countless debates over the past year which included every single candidate even if they were polling in the single digits. As a practical matter, those debates were pretty useless - all you had were 8 or 9 people ramming through their talking points with little or no chance for follow-up since there were too many people on the stage and everyone was supposed to get equal time. That's fine when no caucus or primary has been held. Now that we've gone through Iowa and New Hampshire, I think it's reasonable to say who is a legitimate contender and who isn't on the Democratic side (the Republican side is still way out of whack, so I think someone like Ron Paul, who I have to make clear that I do NOT support since it seems like every other post is a troll for him, had a more legitimate beef of not being invited to the Fox News debate in New Hampshire). Therefore, it's much more important to have a more in-depth debate amongst the true contenders at this point in the game than to give some faux impression of "fairness".
I can sit here and say that I'm going to keep trying out for the Chicago Bulls as a basketball player or American Idol as a singer no matter what anyone else says, just as I can say that I'm going to run for President "and stay in the race all the way to the convention" no matter how the voting is going. That doesn't mean anyone should be giving me the time of day in any of those scenarios if it's clear that I don't have a legitimate shot. The Bulls cut people in tryouts, American Idol cuts people in tryouts, and Iowa and New Hampshire cut people in the Presidential race, whether or not the candidates want to face reality.
Good luck with the try outs! Reality is hard to swallow so people just beleive what they want, Kind of like someone pretending to be a christian, rock star, or basketball player. In the end reality will come to light. Look at the impression Hitler made on Germany. Yeah, reality sucks,
Oh come on!! They were front runners ( according to the media) LONG before any primaries they were the media darlings. I didn't even hear about the other candidates until the primaries, except for how McCain was dead in the water during the summer. I had to go investigate for myself to find out who else was running. And who says they wouldn't have a shot if the Media would let them be heard. Again I have had to go investigate other sources in order to get info on the non " front runners"
Once again, this is a chicken-or-the-egg argument. If a particular candidate is attracting a lot of large crowds, putting together national organizations, and raising campaign funds hand over fist, then the media is going to pay attention to you as a serious (as opposed to a niche issue) candidate. Of course, those large crowds, national organizations, and campaign funds only come from large numbers of people supporting that candidate. If you don't have money, the way to get past that is to actually win something. Was Mike Huckabee a media darling before Iowa? I would certainly say no. However, the media now takes his campaign seriously because he actually has won something.
I know it's avant-garde to bash the media and say that they are pushing a certain agenda on people. We can all point to examples of where we think the media is biased, but at the end of the day, they can only reflect what's happening in general. I know that's not a popular view on Internet message boards which abound with conspiracy theories and tales of how the media is keeping their viewpoint or candidate down, but the only way that candidates such as Dennis Kucinich will be taken seriously is if they give the media a reason to take them seriously - every person in the world has ideas about what they want the government to do, but someone who wants to run a national political campaign needs a whole lot more than that. The media won't (and shouldn't) just take everyone who declares to be a candidate as a serious one by default.
Once again, this is a chicken-or-the-egg argument. If a particular candidate is attracting a lot of large crowds, putting together national organizations, and raising campaign funds hand over fist, then the media is going to pay attention to you as a serious (as opposed to a niche issue) candidate. Of course, those large crowds, national organizations, and campaign funds only come from large numbers of people supporting that candidate. If you don't have money, the way to get past that is to actually win something. Was Mike Huckabee a media darling before Iowa? I would certainly say no. However, the media now takes his campaign seriously because he actually has won something.
I know it's avant-garde to bash the media and say that they are pushing a certain agenda on people. We can all point to examples of where we think the media is biased, but at the end of the day, they can only reflect what's happening in general. I know that's not a popular view on Internet message boards which abound with conspiracy theories and tales of how the media is keeping their viewpoint or candidate down, but the only way that candidates such as Dennis Kucinich will be taken seriously is if they give the media a reason to take them seriously - every person in the world has ideas about what they want the government to do, but someone who wants to run a national political campaign needs a whole lot more than that. The media won't (and shouldn't) just take everyone who declares to be a candidate as a serious one by default.
Again as soon as word got out in 06 who might be running, they were already declared front runners. This was before the mighty ads started. And Ron Paul has raised more money than most, but of course you never hear that.
Again as soon as word got out in 06 who might be running, they were already declared front runners. This was before the mighty ads started. And Ron Paul has raised more money than most, but of course you never hear that.
Howard Dean was a frontrunner by the media in 2004, but you see where he ended up. John McCain was the frontrunner by the media for this year's election when people were just starting to announce a year ago, was then written off by the media in the summer, and is now coming back around again. The media even wrote off Barack Obama a few months ago as having a campaign in turmoil that would never have a chance against the "inevitable" nomination of Hillary Clinton.
The general public isn't as stupid as a lot of people on this message board seem to make them - they pay attention to the media, but they don't follow them like sheep. How do you explain Howard Dean's lack of success in 2004 or Mike Huckabee's success this year (and let me be clear that I'm not a Huckabee supporter whatsoever - he's probably the only Republican that I wouldn't vote for)? It obviously wasn't the power of the media or else we would have had vastly different results. If people listened to the media like sheep, John McCain would have dropped out of the race months ago. If people didn't have minds of their own separate from what the media was telling them, we would be on a Hillary Clinton coronation tour right now as opposed to one of the most competitive nomination races we've seen in 40 or 50 years. The media has power, but people in general are a lot more discerning than you give them credit for.
On the other point, how many stories do you want to see about Ron Paul's fundraising? It was on the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post websites when he had those record days of Internet fundraising, so it's selective analysis to say that "you never hear that". The fact that not that many people outside of his group of hardcore supporters have chosen to pay attention to it is what should bother his campaign as opposed to a perceived lack of media attention. Ron Paul has some ideas that outside of the box, which I like, but his hardcore supporters need to differentiate between perceived media bias versus whether the general public actually likes him. Any honest person can see that he's not a strong debater, so the general public doesn't have a great impression of him going head-to-head against the other Republican candidates - that's something tangible that he could work on that would make a lot more difference in terms of people turning out to vote for him as opposed to having his supporters cry "bias" all the time.
Isn't Howard Dean the one with the loud scream at an event that the Media made fun of for ever, then you never saw him again?
The last Debate Ron Paul was in the public voted and said he won I thought he did a fine job even though they tried to throw him off by asking him if he was viable, nice to see someone that doesn't talk in sound bites. the one before he couldn't get a word in edgewise.
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