Two weeks ago, Matt predicted that May and June would be dominated not by a shift of focus toward Obama vs. McCain, but instead by media obsession with Clinton's downfall:
I get the feeling that we're in the period before the convention where the presumptive nominee isn't yet the official nominee, but everyone assumes he will be. Only, instead of focusing on the Obama-McCain contest, there's a collective viewing of the trainwreck that is Hillary Clinton.
This certainly seems accurate. A quick glance at Google News shows that Clinton is still drawing more headlines than McCain. Here are the number of headlines each candidate has appeared in over the last four days:
Obama: 919
Clinton: 651
McCain: 562
Much the same can be seen on the blogs. Five of the eight recommended diaries at Daily Kos right now are about Hillary Clinton (here, here, here, here, and here), while another is about comparing Clinton and Obama swing state polling.
For Clinton to still be surpassing McCain in news coverage and blog coverage, despite everyone knowing that the outcome of the primary season is a foregone conclusion, is telling. It makes me feel like the entire political world are a bunch of cool kid wannabes in high school who can't stop gossiping about the downfall of the queen bee, ala Mean Girls or Heathers. It is clear that Hillary Clinton herself is the actual story here, not the campaign. If the story were about the campaign rather than Hillary Clinton as a personality, then the focus would have turned to Obama vs. McCain at least two weeks ago (and probably much earlier). However, instead of focusing on the campaign, there is clearly an obsession with Clinton's slow, and inevitable, defeat.
Part of it is celebration, from conservative and sexist quarters, over her defeat. Part of it is the media obsession with celebrity and the "Democrats divided" narrative. Part of it is simple difficulty in letting go of the most heavily covered primary campaign of all time. Whatever its myriad causes are, we in the blogosphere need to do our part in stopping a focus on Clinton, and shifting toward the general election. Keeping the focus off McCain is not helping us define him. Keeping the focus on Clinton is simply rubbing old wounds, and making it harder to unite the party. The blogosphere drives media coverage more than we often realize, and our continuing obsession with Hillary Clinton is just not helpful in accomplishing the latter two tasks.
We all need to just let the nomination campaign go. The outcome of that campaign is a foregone conclusion, but the outcome of the general election certainly isn't. There is no need to dance on anyone's grave--it just isn't helpful. Let's all move on, and complete the task we set out to do: win the presidency, and bring progressive change to America. |
