Horse-Race Mongering

So John Edwards has bowed out of the race for President. We are now left with two so-called Democrats, appeaser Obama and corporate Clinton, and the anachronism that calls itself the Republican race. We are told that this is the will of the voters in action. We are told that these are the front-runners. We are told that these are the viable candidates. We are not told, however, that corporate-friendly, unthreatening establishment candidates get all of the news coverage and, thereby, have all of the advantage in the race.

The so-called press led the American public to believe that overweighting race and gender would lead to a substantial change in government. It is right to a degree. The election of Clinton would be the first woman president in U.S. history. The election of Obama would be the first African-American president. What the press neglected to inform the voters about is that neither candidate will substantially alter the course of the nation. In purely economic terms, Clinton and Obama are the equilvalent of wealthy white men and will govern accordingly.

In contrast, John Edwards, the actual wealthy white man, stood for populism and an end to what really ails this state, i.e. the expansion of unbridled corporate power and influence over the globe and the government. While Obama was claiming that he was funded entirely by small individual donations (which is false www.opensecrets.org), Edwards was backed by progressive individuals through places such as Act Blue and heavily limited industry donations. Of course, the powers that be wanted to block campaign matching funds for Edwards.

The coverage of the candidates belied the media's interest in giving an unbiased report. After Iowa, where Edwards placed second, the coverage of the Clinton v. Obama race continued on full pace. It was never about how Edwards defeated Clinton, but only about how stunning it was that Clinton came in third and how she was expected to rebound in NH. After the New Hampshire primary, Edwards became largely a nonentity. It is not rocket science to suggest that the candidates who receive the most coverage, positive or negative, will be foremost in the minds of the voters. Madison Avenue has known this for years. Hence, it is not unplausible to suggest that the media knowingly and purposefully chose to cover Obama and Clinton at the expense of the anti-corporate Edwards. After all, the media is ostensibly a singular corporate entity unto itself. Of course, it attempted to make it seem as if it had to cover Obama and Clinton being that they are, in a way, the political aberrations of this election season. It seemed to matter little to Democrats that the total coverage of race and gender made Democrats seem as reactionary as Republicans.

We now have one candidate who is a shill for the pharmaceutical companies and one who praises Reagan and vows to put the same kind of people we have now back in control in the name of bipartisanism claiming to be the candidates of change. Socrates said that it was necessary to control the stories in order to keep control over the populace. The media now controls our stories in quite the literal sense. However, the media does not act in the interests of the people and it is now time to remove the mainstream, corporate interests of this behemoth from our election system.