Rethos

The most exciting thing about the current Presidential election cycle is not the prospect of a Bush-free white house, although that certainly has its charms. Rather what edifies the soul lately is the rapidly diminishing role the mainstream media is playing in dictating the discussion. Time and again we have seen how the bloviators, pundits and talking heads have gotten it wrong – from Hilary’s New Hampshire upset, to Obama’s certain demise at the hands of his Pastor, to Giuliani’s inevitability and on and on. You have to wonder what qualifies as “expert” status nowadays (perhaps it is just having a free hour in one’s schedule to come by the studio). Instead the old newscast standby’s of polls, projections, “leaked” reports, and expert opinions have all gone by the wayside as ground-up media sources like YouTube reframe the debate and cast their unexpectedly large influence on how we view the candidates and the race itself.

There is a lot of hullabaloo lately about how the sustained fighting between the Clinton and Obama camps will cause irrevocable damage the Democrat’s chances in the Fall with one senator, chairman or prognosticator after another coming forward to call for Clinton’s withdrawal from the race afraid that they (or she more accurately) are handing McCain a few free months to get on message while they bloody one another up. Top down, this is how the big media guys see the race. The way it is going now is messing with their big-story plans. It’s got to be A against B, Red against Blue. They want the big fight right now, so they can book the airtime and draw the lines for the pro and con camps that drive today’s news and opinion shows. Nuance, as we have learned in the last ten years, has less and less of a home in journalism, and certainly none in the television/infotainment complex. It’s hard sometimes to tell the difference between the “Situation Room” and ESPN Center. (A hint – on ESPN everyone shouts a lot less.)

Everyone else seems to want the democratic process to continue in its entirety, especially in the states where they have not yet voted in their primaries. In real life patience is still a virtue. On television it is factored out of the equation entirely. Hardly five minutes goes by without an advertisement rearing its ugly head. In television, certainly our dominant collective conscious at the moment, sponsors are the real Mr. Big - and he is tired of waiting. He has his story to tell after all and he pays well to do so. Unfortunately he is out of touch – so involved ultimately in discussing himself that he missed the fact that we have all begun to talk amongst ourselves.

It’s nothing new to consider that television spends more time talking about the horserace than it does about the issues when it comes to politics and governance. There is little discussion of policy difference between the candidates, but a lot about who is associated with which wacko man of the cloth, or who lied to what degree about what unconfirmed fact, or what did So and So’s spouse say, and more important what are they wearing? It’s no surprise that in a medium driven by commercial necessities that these more “interesting” issues are brought front and center. Remember when things used to actually get decided at conventions? Now they are just a mega-million dollar pep rally peppered with Mercedes and Levitra ads. At least when the Superbowl commercials get more press than the game itself it seems more honest.

Now however viral video has restored choice to viewers and to voters. More of us watched Obama’s speech on race than did Pastor Wrights comments but which do think played more on television? A forty-minute speech? With no commercials? How Un-American. To the programmers five minutes of raving beats a half hour of reasonable behavior any day.

You Tube videos, with their accidental insidiousness, catch the politicos outside of their rubber smile moments. Any savvy pol can spot a network video cam from a hundred yards. Some kid with a cell phone camera is much more dangerous, powerful and revolutionary. In a word: Macaca.

The man was right, you know – the revolution will not be televised, it will be uploaded. And while it may seem harder and harder to count votes, it’s still pretty easy to see just what (or who) clicks.