Llewellyn
King
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May 12, 2008
Alas, By Their Gaffes
We Will Know Them
Just a month ago, the Washington press corps was still enthralled with
this presidential election year. It was packed with firsts: For example,
it was the first time since the 1952 election that neither an incumbent
president nor incumbent vice president is a candidate in the general
election; the first time a woman was running for president; and the
first credible African-American candidate was on the stump.
Now, the joy has gone out of the thing. Rather than covering great
events, most reporters I know feel that they are on a kind of gaffe
watch. Gaffes are important in presidential politics, and a single
misstatement can change the odds dramatically. John McCain may yet rue
that he seems to be confused by the Sunnis and the Shiites, and Iraq and
Iran. Barack Obama must wish that he had never diagnosed the white
working-class male as bitter. And Hillary Clinton, a lady with an eye
for her place in history, must loathe the fact that she was the first to
play the race card.
Because of the shallowness of this phase of the presidential race,
trivia dominates.
Reporters hate, but they are also partly responsible for, the
mid-election doldrums. They are sanctioned by tradition to question the
company a candidate keeps, but they are not sanctioned to press that
candidate on how he or she would staff their administration. So we know
all we want to and more about their preachers, their spouses, their
finances and their pastimes.
But to a much lesser extent, we know the policies that the candidates
are predisposed to pursue. McCain, for example, favors a comprehensive
health care system built around private insurance. Clinton leans towards
a government-mandated system. And Obama, who has yet to clearly define
his plan, seems to lean towards government mandates. But we do not know
whether they could get their plans through Congress, or who would be the
health care czar. In fact, we only have a hint of the direction in
health care that the new president would like to go.
We
really do not know how any of the candidates would pursue peace in the
Middle East, or react to an increasingly bellicose Russia and an
aggressive China. The candidates dare not tell us what they feel, for
fear it will become a contentious part of the election.
The system demands that the candidates tell us what good people they
are, not how they will govern. A soupcon of an idea, like suspending the
gas tax, becomes a surrogate for a real energy policy.
Hundreds of very good reporters now feel frustrated. They feel they must
write about the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., when they know he will have
no bearing on the way that a President Obama would govern. Likewise,
they must dutifully cover Clinton riding in a pickup truck to prove her
bona fides as a representative of the working class, when they know
perfectly well that she has been riding in limos for decades and living
the elite life, even if she is not an elitist.
Then there is McCain the candidate that more reporters know personally
than the other two who is doing the Republican rounds, right hand
extended, left hand clutching the talking points. The Straight Talk
Express has become the Schmooze Local.
If
reporters and commentators seem to want to show Clinton the door, it is
no wonder. They do not dislike her personally, but they are desperate to
get on with the main event. While they are on gaffe watch, they know
that big issues are in abeyance, and that the Democratic contest has
become a distraction and a bore.
© 2008 North Star
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