By Tracy Russo
Like many other Democrats, I am anxiously waiting for the day when we have an official nominee. Without a dog in the fight, I’ve been content to let the remaining contests play out, sit back and observe. But last night, what I observed was disgraceful.
It is one thing to watch supporters of Senator Obama to aggressively cheering on his campaign. It’s inspiring. It’s amazing. It gives me hope for a strong and vibrant campaign in the fall - a campaign filled with passionate people working because they believe in their ability to change the world.
It is one thing to watch bloggers, like our dear Al, offer up analysis, advice and a good dose of sarcasm as the race unfolds, their bias made public and their commentary quite personal. That’s par for the course. That’s entertainment. That’s part of the game.
It is another thing entirely to watch 4+ hours of supposedly neutral pundits on cable TV gloat over the demise of the Clinton campaign. As the night went on, Chris Matthews, Tim Russert and even my favorite of them all, Keith Olbermann continued to disappoint.
And with every passing commercial break, I found myself more and more frustrated by their behavior. Leaving aside the complete lack of racial diversity or female perspective (because I so love it when a bunch of old white men tell me what to think), the longer we waited for the results from Indiana, the worse their behavior became.
At one point, I heard them attribute the media’s obsession with Reverend Wright’s remarks to the Clinton campaign. In one fell swoop, they both blamed the Clinton campaign for single-handedly making it an issue, and then mocked them for the way in which that strategy failed. Never mind that it was pundits like Matthews and Russert that thrust those comments onto cable TV and then proceeded to discuss them in a never-ending loop. Never mind that it wasn’t the Clinton campaign, but Reverend Wright himself who decided to reinvigorate the controversy by going on a “look-at-me” press tour. No, according to what I heard last night, it was all the doing of the super evil geniuses behind Senator Clinton - and look at how they failed.
I wonder what we’ll see when we have time to remove ourselves from the daily grind of this campaign and look back at the way in which the media influenced this election and our public discourse around the candidates. Will it be as obvious then, as it is to me now, how entrenched and acceptable the misogyny spewed daily has become? Will we be able to look back and say that there was something quite unnatural about the level of hatred so many had for Hillary Clinton? Will we ever be able to understand why?
I doubt it. I think once this is all said and done, we’ll forget the sins of so many. We’ll choose to look back at this exciting period of American history, where barriers were broken and remember only the good things about this primary race - much the way a mother forgets the terrible pain of labor once she holds that perfectly small child in her arms for the first time.
And when another woman tries for the highest office in the land, hopefully, we’ll have grown up enough to handle it and she won’t have to subject to the terrible whims of a mostly male punditry.
As for what lies ahead, if and when the Clinton campaign calls it quits, Democrats better be ready for the maelstrom that awaits. There is nothing exciting or noteworthy about a placidly polite campaign and someone is going to be made the villain. Someone will fill the void that is left behind when it gets down to two. And somehow, I don’t see the media setting their sights on John McCain.
Posted on May 7th, 2008 by Tracy Russo
Filed under: Countdown to Denver | 186 Comments »
