tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post2605200329536813372..comments2023-10-16T07:13:12.123-05:00Comments on A plain blog about politics: They Set Down Right on the Horse!Jonathan Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-40426269577669673162011-09-08T16:33:15.001-05:002011-09-08T16:33:15.001-05:00Scott, yes, I know, it was kind of a shock to disc...Scott, yes, I know, it was kind of a shock to discover this. Explains a lot about our politics, though.Jeffnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-68391483880512692192011-09-08T16:07:56.416-05:002011-09-08T16:07:56.416-05:00". . . much of the TV coverage was actually w...". . . much of the TV coverage was actually way over lots of viewers' heads . . ."<br /><br />That has to be the most depressing thing I've read all day.Scott Monjenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-30921656976170379202011-09-08T15:10:32.461-05:002011-09-08T15:10:32.461-05:00Marx is right, of course, but Jeff's comment i...Marx is right, of course, but Jeff's comment is also important. <br /><br />If you interpret "horse-race coverage" to be about the entire campaigns, then of course it matters. But if you interpret "horse-race coverage" to be the 19th story this week about polling looking only at the marginals, then that's the bathwater. Valuable, yes, but its repetition adds nothing. Having weekly polls, and stories on them, is useful to people, but there's so much saturation that it's kinda like yet another singing competition reality show: it adds nothing, and it's presence squeezes out the potential for something better (in the case of the singing show, a test pattern, or reruns of Gunsmoke, or an infomercial)Matt Jarvisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-48913946547558894592011-09-08T14:53:03.988-05:002011-09-08T14:53:03.988-05:00Marx is saying, don't throw the baby out with ...Marx is saying, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. He does carefully acknowledge, though, that plenty of horse-race coverage is -- to mix metaphors -- still bathwater.<br /><br />But I agree that there's virtue in letting ordinary voters know what political insiders are thinking and saying. I also think this is much harder to do than we suppose. This was brought home to me in '08 when I watched the Super Tuesday results at a MoveOn-sponsored house party. Even the people there, who were high-information enough to have gathered for an evening of watching primary returns, were only fitfully aware of how the system works. A couple of them kept objecting to the TV analysts' attempts to break the vote down demographically based on exit polls -- to distinguish how whites, blacks, Hispanics, women, older people, etc. were voting. Isn't this an invidious way of dividing people from each other, they asked? Here in America, aren't we supposed to value everyone equally, regardless of race, color or creed?<br /><br />I tried to explain that such categories reflected the ways in which candidates themselves, and their campaign managers and consultants, thought and talked about the race -- as a contest for the support of demographically identifiable groups. Given this, I said, it was better that the TV people let the rest of us in on that discussion too than that they keep it from us. But overall, my impression was that much of the TV coverage was actually way over lots of viewers' heads -- that at least at the pace at which information is thrown at you on TV, it's extremely hard even for many diligent voters to make sense of analyses that presuppose political insiders' knowledge and ways of thinking.Jeffnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-14864759294871013562011-09-08T14:02:07.732-05:002011-09-08T14:02:07.732-05:00You have to think internet based small dollar is c...You have to think internet based small dollar is changing things, just not for the better:<br /><br />Dean<br />Obama<br />Ron Paul<br /><br />Perhaps making it more transparent, but I don't see better candidates emerging. Parties exist for one reason in this county -- nominations. Dollar voting isn't part of that.<br /><br />Might also explain why Obama has so little political capital. He knows his internet funding can't be re-directed towards downticket candidates, and they know it too.charlienoreply@blogger.com