Comments on: Chris Matthews: The Media Created “Delusion” That Hillary Can Win

By: John Sinteur

John Sinteur — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:14:11 +0000

true - so I’ll have to continue grumbling, then.

By: Maarten

Maarten — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 20:12:43 +0000

My impression is that Hillary can only win by gathering an overwhelming number of the superdelegates on her side. I don’t really want to get into the debate about the implications of the supers “overriding” the regular delegates, just say that it’s an open route, and it will not be resolved until the regular primaries are over. Thus, the voting and the campaigning will continue. The point being that while we may not like the tone of the press, the race goes on no matter how the press treats it.

By: John Sinteur

John Sinteur — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:46:26 +0000

Well, perhaps I’m overly sensitive because of the distance to all the media from here. The fact that the NOS blatantly plugs everything Hillary does isn’t helping either…

By: Maarten

Maarten — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 19:40:04 +0000

You think the superdelegates haven’t turned off the ringer on their phones yet? I bet they’re getting dozens of daily calls.

Here’s a quick sampling of headlines:

CNN: “Analysis: did Clinton win come in time?”
FoxNews headline: “Big win, Little change”
MSNBC: “After win, Clinton still the underdog”
NYTimes: “Clinton Sees Turned Tide; Obama Holds Lead”
USA today: “Clinton presses case after big Pennsylvania win”
Washington Post: “Clinton faces a daunting task”
Seattle Times: “Clinton wins Pa, still underdog”
LA Times (print ed): “Good night, not goodbye for Clinton”
Chicago Trib: “And the fight goes on”

I’m sure you can come up with more skewed headlines from other sources, but these are some of the biggest news outlets, and they’re not shouting “Clinton is BACK”.

Not to say that I like the coverage I’ve seen. CNN in particular was hard to take in the days before PA.

By: John Sinteur

John Sinteur — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:07:14 +0000

Two days ago, Hillary needed to win each remaining state with at least 66% of the votes. Today, she’ll need each remaining state with at least 76% of the votes. Yet they say she won. Two days ago, it was all about the super delegates. Today, it is all about the super delegates. Nothing’s changed, yet “she’s back in the race”. They deliberately misrepresent the race in their own advantage.

I guess trying to contact all super delegates and pester them until they say who they support is too much work.

By: Maarten

Maarten — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:11:47 +0000

What you say may be true, but is it the media’s role to decide when the contest is over? I agree that they’re playing it up much more than I personally care for–but the contest in ongoing, it’s important, and IMO if the media decided to stop covering it, that’d be a far bigger scandal.

Let’s face it–there’s a market for the coverage. We have seen that market, and it is us(*).

(*) the greater us, that is, rather than you+me.