Wednesday, February 6, 2008

All the world is an AM talk radio show

I've been searching for the past fifteen minutes on Google News for any indication of who is winning in the primaries after Super Tuesday, in terms of concrete numbers, such as the number of delegates each candidate has won.

Quick aside: I never heard about superdelegates until this year. Superdelegates? Are you serious? I mean, I knew that the United States voting system was a bit outdated, what, with the whole electoral college and all, but superdelagates? I thought every vote was equal in a democracy, but apparently, in some George Orwellian Animal Farm-esque way, some votes are more equal than others.

I have yet to find one. Of course, I haven't really been searching very hard, but the fact is, I shouldn't have to search hard. Journalism used to be about facts and numbers and...facts! You know, concrete evidence stuff that we learned about in high school science and even English classes? Instead, it's all like, "McCain needs to unify GOP" or "Hillary and Obama neck in neck" or "Huckabee still viable candidate" or "Romney trailing behind McCain."

And what do these esteemed journalists have to back up these headlines? Quotes from the campaign managers. So all McCain's campaign manager has to do is say, "We need to unify the GOP," and suddenly it is irrefutable political dogma.

4 comments:

kacie said...

what are superdelegates? is it really some animals are more equal than others? i get the nytimes emailed to me and they have the numbers right there.

Flaw said...

Superdelegates are a Democratic party thing. They consist of influential party members and elected officials who can vote for whichever candidate they like, rather than having to follow the results of the primary elections.

leztnad said...

Ah, such a good book! I really need to read it again. Drats! I should have looked for it at Half-Price Books when I was in Seattle with you!

kacie said...

oh. i thought delegates could do that anyway. isn't that the point of having delegates at all? so the dumb common man cannot ruin the country with his miseducated vote! duh nuh nuh nuh nuh superdelegate man