Metro Monthly

By John Patrick Gatta
Metro Monthly Staff Writer

“At this point, usually, we go to our campaign coverage, but tonight we’re not going to. And I’ll tell you why I’M ****** SICK OF IT!!! It never changes! It goes on and on and on . . . and nothing’s different.”

– Jon Stewart, “The Daily Show,” from the April 24, 2008 broadcast
It wouldn’t be surprising to find some degree of voter fatigue due to the nonstop coverage of the presidential election. Media speculation as to who would run, who is perceived as a frontrunner and who is inconsequential began almost immediately after Democrats made gains in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in November of 2006.

Not that anyone was celebrating, but the one-year anniversary of the first Democratic debate recently took place, with the first Republican debate anniversary occurring on May 3.

In the case of Stewart, the Comedy Central humorist makes his living by directing pointed comical barbs at hypocrisy and painfully bad journalism on “The Daily Show.” But, as the campaign has descended into peripheral character issues that are repeated constantly on cable news channels while the economic future for many Americans hangs in a tenuous balance, it’s difficult not to seek a break in the action.

Michael Murphy of Woodworth has had enough with the ongoing process. “I’m just becoming disgusted now, frustrated.”
He said his attitude was shaped by the Clinton campaign going so negative on Obama and the mainstream media’s penchant to ignore issues of concern to the citizens of the country.

“I thought it was a good idea at first to let ‘em play it out in the primary but now she’s beating up on him more than McCain,” Murphy said.
Dr. David V. Leone, a professor of anthropology, originally favored no particular candidate. He now supports Obama due to the candidate’s foreign policy views and Clinton’s tactics against the opposing candidate.

“This is an extremely important election for the world not just America,” said the Lowellville native and Youngstown State University graduate who now lives in Missouri and teaches online for the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. “The Democratic candidates are both strong and I am not surprised that it has gone on as long as it has, but I have been very disappointed with the Clinton campaign’s tendency to parrot right wing talking points.”

Murphy wondered aloud about an ongoing conspiracy theory that Clinton is sabotaging Obama’s possible nomination so she can run against a President McCain in 2112.

Seeing the Democratic nominee being kneecapped by someone in his own party has angered him enough that he’s pondered going green, as in the Green Party, or investigating the views of the Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, the onetime conservative Republican congressman who had disowned the GOP following dissatisfaction over its actions during the past seven years.

With a master’s degree in history, Murphy pointed out that his political views have developed by drawing from a variety of sources including Web sites that cater to the left (Americablog.com, ThinkProgress.com, Huffingtonpost.com, TruthOut.org) and the right (Redstate.org, TownHall.com, MahoningValleyRed, mvred.com.).

“It’s foolish not to [read both sides]. How can you make a solid argument against somebody if you’re just going to drone on about your own side?” Murphy mentioned a recent discussion wherein he referenced the views of conservative analyst and former President Nixon speech writer Pat Buchnanan to highlight that it’s not just the left that disagree with President Bush on particular issues.

Murphy’s reliance on the Internet for news and opinion reflects a lack of faith in the mainstream media’s coverage of politics, in general, and the current presidential race, in particular.
“The media, they spin the best character as if they’re TV characters like it’s some kind of reality show,” he said. “They gloss over the truth for an image.”

Leone agreed. “The media coverage of this campaign has been a disservice to the country. The trivialization of minor, non-important issues (e.g. flag pins, bowling scores) to the almost complete exclusion of serious issues has shown the complete disregard that they [the media] have for the electorate.”

“For a view of how bad the U.S. media is, just watch a foreign media source for coverage of the U.S. election. No discussion of Obama’s poor bowling score there. Actual discussion of positions. Refreshing,” Murphy said.

“As a political scientist I find it quite interesting,” said Dr. William Binning, professor emeritus at Youngstown State University. Previously, he was chairman of YSU’s Political Science Department.
“What we’re having now is a product of the Democratic rules. Their rules have never been tested like this before. These rules were adopted in the 70s, the use of proportionality which is making it difficult for the Democrats to settle on a nominee.

“If they were operating under the Republican rules, quite likely this thing would be over with. Republican rules usually do winner-take-all, so it brings it to closure. On the other hand, if the Republicans had these [Democratic] rules, they might still be going on.”

The complexity of the Democratic delegate math is tackled on a blog entry at the online version of the liberal magazine “Mother Jones". The magazine’s blog explains that the delegates are divided through a combination of totals at the state and district levels. To make it more confusing, the method can vary from state to state.

In other words, poll results may show one candidate ahead, and the election coverage reports that one candidate “won” a particular state but, in the end, none of that matters very much because the candidate with fewer overall votes is not shut out from obtaining a number of delegates. That’s why Obama, for example, still padded his delegate lead even after losing by nearly 10 percentage points in Pennsylvania.

For years, Iowa and New Hampshire held sway over the rest of the country. A candidate who won in those particular states was generally perceived by the national media and financial supporters as the frontrunner. With that outlook and backing, the perception usually became self-fulfilling prophecy. This year, such a conclusion took slightly longer than expected in the Republican primaries. Although current analysis presents Clinton with a slim-to-none chance of overcoming the delegate lead of opponent Obama – due to the party’s own rules of allocating delegate numbers – that race continues.

Binning said other democracies conduct their elections in less time and he believes that a shorter schedule is “healthier.”
Binning said political junkies are the perpetual followers of the race, tracking candidates every utterance and non-verbal nuance. “I don’t think the public is tuning in, in general,” he said. “I don’t think you engage the public over the years. They become disinterested as it goes on. The British have a fairly compressed election. It’s probably all we need, but it’s hard to get there because the parties and state governments determine how this would be run – not the national government.”

“It’s only too long because the media coverage says it is,” countered Leone. “More democracy is not a bad thing, and a huge positive of the length of the primary season is that states who formerly would not have mattered in the election now have a say in the process. The negative is that the media has lost sight of the issues.”

Describing himself as a moderate Republican, Binning said he originally supported Rudolph Giuliani but now plans to vote for Sen. John McCain, the GOP nominee. Binning, who served as chairman of the Mahoning County Republican Party in the 1980s, emphasized that his views rely more on an academic scanning of the political landscape.

Binning said that his students seem “unusually interested in this election.” He added that the enthusiasm among younger voters, who normally avoid politics, has been a plus for the Obama campaign.
Carlye Slaughter, a sophomore at Slippery Rock University, said that recent classes in American government and international relations have encouraged her to develop a critical eye when viewing what the candidates put forth as their policies.

The extended Democratic primary has also been a civics lesson of sorts for Slaughter. She recalled one of her professors mentioning that since the primary system is normally front-loaded toward other states, Pennsylvania would probably not have much say in the matter. She appreciated that her vote ultimately ended up mattering, but is now feeling fatigued by the process. “It’s getting a little old. I’m sick of every time I go into class and hearing about it. I just wish we would know already who is running.”

Growing up in Sharpsville, Pa. and now living in Sharon, Slaughter did not find Obama’s comments about people being ‘bitter’ as a slam against the Keystone State’s residents in small towns. “A lot of people in the world, no matter where they’re from, are bitter because it’s hard to get jobs. The cost of living has gone up and people aren’t making enough to keep up with it. So, I don’t think it’s necessarily small town people.”

“I see people hurting from the economy every day,” said Murphy. “The divide does concern me. You see CEOs that make these large fortunes on failures and the Average Joe wouldn’t get rewarded for his failures. It’s starting to look like the Mexican government where the very few have most of the money in the country.

“The economy’s a big concern but that’s by and large driven because we threw all our money away in Iraq. Now, going back to me playing both sides, I usually point up to people that if Reagan was smart enough to bankrupt the Soviet Union by trapping them in Afghanistan how has George Bush not learned that lesson that we’re going to be trapped in Iraq and it’s going to bankrupt us?”

Slaughter said that some of her friends have joined the ROTC as a desperate measure to pay for college. “They’re like, ‘I don’t want to have to go fight but I have no other choice because they’re paying for my college.’ It would be nice, even if the war doesn’t end, to have some troops back and not have as many over there.”

With the Democratic primary season continuing and its two remaining candidates remaining locked in a fierce battle, the negative aspects of each have become fodder for the opposition. Such tactics bring about a fear among Democratic Party faithful that such talk does the work of the right.

Binning said he understands that it can hurt the eventual Democratic nominee, but also sees all the mudslinging as a positive. “I think they’ve been vetted more by the press and by each other, these remaining two. The stuff is out. It loses some of its bite. So, maybe that’s good and it won’t be something that the Republicans can bring up because we already knew about this.

“I don’t think we really know how tested McCain’s been, although he’s been in it before. We have yet to find out what will come out about him.”

“It [the extended primary] has both good and bad aspects,” said Leone. “On the plus side, it has energized the Democratic side, and allowed later states to have a say in the process. Also, it has greatly increased the grassroots involvement (i.e. Obama’s record-breaking online fund raising).

“The negative consequence is that it has allowed McCain to completely evade any media scrutiny while Obama and Clinton fight it out.” Leone feels that McCain has received a free ride from the media.

Although she’s tiring of the lengthy process, Slaughter took a more positive spin. “The longer it goes on, the more you can learn of what people’s views are.” More importantly, she feels that, in the end, there’s no place to go but up with the next administration.

“As long as it’s not George Bush, then I don’t care,” she said. “I don’t know how I really feel about John McCain, so I looked at the Democrats. Although I voted for Hillary, it was kind of a tie. I’d actually like to see one be president and the other be vice-president. I don’t know how likely that is. I support both of them. At this point, both of them can help. I think when you reach rock bottom, it’s kind of hard to go farther than that, so even McCain can be helpful. All three of them would be good but I’m still definitely on the Democratic side.”
Some speculate that a presidential nominee may not be chosen until the Democratic Convention in August, thereby undermining party unity.

In a recent article in The New York Times (“Delegate Battles Snarl Democrats in Two States”), Clinton supporters threatened pulling their financial support to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to force the Michigan and Florida delegates into the overall count, which would help their candidate. According to the DNC, both states violated the rules by holding their primaries at an unsanctioned earlier date. See http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/08/highlights_of_t.php. Still, despite DNC rules, party officials in each state ignored the warning that they would not have their delegates accepted. In addition, Obama didn’t even place his name on the Michigan ballot, which further complicates the matter there.

And continued controversy has surfaced within the African-American community, among those who originally supported Clinton over Obama. Feeling betrayed by comments made by President Bill Clinton and others in the Clinton camp, there have been expressions of anger if Hillary Clinton would become the nominee.

Still, Binning thinks that the election is too important for the Democratic Party to allow itself to be torn apart. “The expectation is from most things that I read is that when they finally come to closure on a candidate, they’ll get a spike in the polls. McCain will be behind, and it will be a catch up race.”

He added, “Certainly, you would think that with Bush’s unpopularity and the unpopularity of the war and a bad economy, the Democrats have a locked up election. Are they spoiling this opportunity? I don’t know. So whether it’s good for them or not we don’t want know. You can call me in November.”