Saturday, August 23, 2008

There's the Insight for which I've Been Looking!

Oh, Ta-Nehisi, I'm so glad you came to The Atlantic so that you could provide the stunning challenges to my way of thinking that had been previously lacking:

I have this deep-seated suspicion that the things we think decide elections--ads, gaffes, rallies, counter-punches--aren't as important as we make them. I mean they are important, but often I suspect that they're just distracting us from much deeper, uncontrollable--and in some ways unknowable--questions. How's the war going? How will the economy be doing in November? What do the voter reg numbers look like? How many of those are likely to turn out?
MORE IMPORTANT THAN GAFFES??!@??!! WHY DO THEY ALWAYS HAVE TO BLOW MY MIND!

I ask them SOOOO nicely not to do it, and then just -boom!- they blow it to smithereens. Can we please get back to something more comfortable?
What's going on at the local level with this thing? What's happening--right now--in the voting precints of Ohio and North Carolina? Stop telling me how much money Obama is pouring into those states--I want to know what that money does, how is it being put to work. Less top-down coverage, more bottom up.
Phew, yes, let's get some stories about what we really KNOW is important, like whether the money is going to pay staffers to canvas or to fund the creation of more buttons and signs in the Cincinnati suburbs. THAT'S the kind of campaign coverage that would be TRULY useful for us to have so that we might properly decide our next president.

Is there a single IQ point in the entirety of the blogosphere? I guess with a name as stupid as "blogosphere" it just has to be dumb.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well, "bottom up" coverage usually isn't provided because it's dull, minute and the public at large isn't interested. But it's fairly simple for people like Coates to find out for themselves. I found that link after a ten second Google search for the words "campaign funds." You'd think a so-called journalist would at least try that before whining that "60 Minutes" isn't running features about the voting hotbeds of Ohio to satisfy his interest in the subject.