Remember last year? The prevailing MSM conventional wisdom was that the 2008 race would be a battle between two nationally known Senate heavyweights, John McCain and Hillary Clinton. A done deal, inevitable as the tides in fact; nothing to see here, move on.
Well, that's not working out so well, is it?
As I wrote on October 5th, 2006, here:
If you want an example of the mainstream media babbling on endlessly on what they believe the story should be, look no further than the endless obsession with New York's junior Senator. Two years before the first primary vote will be cast, Hillary is today portrayed as the all-but-crowned and inevitable Presidential nominee (as is John McCain for the other side, in a striking parallel that only makes the pattern clearer). The verdict of the elite chattering classes is in: Hillary it is, in a face-off against McCain – a nice, solid storyline that plays to all the things the media like to see in their coverage, such as high name recognition, easy clichés, and nice little cookie-cutter boxes to frame their articles. Just think of all the 'Can a woman be President?' stories already written – pure speculation (not to say useless wankery), but these stories practically write themselves and let you head out to The Hamptons that much earlier.
And this...
The GOP base has a better memory, to its credit, than the media think; in their eyes, McCain is first and foremost the author of McCain-Feingold, a founding member of the treacherous 'Gang of 14', and an advocate of various policies that may make the media love him, but produce outrage amongst the true believers. The simple storyline is that the base will overlook these treacheries (as they see them) as the Bush administration continues its slow-motion collapse.
Again, no. Rather, as the efforts to re-brand George Bush as a liberal (and thereby to insulate conservatism from his failure) suggest, the base will look for a dyed in the wool true believer – and that is not going to be the treacherous John McCain.
Well, here are some of today's headlines:
The Boston Globe: Obama campaign take of $25M gets attention
The New York Daily News: Bam boom! Hillary's gloom? Barack deals big blow to her dream of riding money machine to victory - rakes in $25M
Hotline: Kicking McCain when he's down
Political Wire: Edwards gains in New Hampshire
That's not what inevitability looks like. McCain's campaign is in serious trouble; he's fallen to second place in the polls and third in the money race. As to Hillary, she just took a body blow on her biggest, some say only, asset: being able to out-raise all comers. The numbers aren't in yet on the details, but it appears likely that Barack Obama has outraised her on key metrics, such as primary cash. Meanwhile, the only top-tier Democratic primary contender with positive polling momentum is John Edwards.
The MSM and the elite pundit class seldom, if ever, revisit their debunked storylines from six months ago. They're lazy that way. But what we're seeing today is yet another example of what many in the Progressive blogosphere have been saying for a long time: if you want real political analysis, the place to go is the Progressive blogosphere.
I'll be awaiting that mea culpa from The Washington Post any day now.
