Wednesday, January 07, 2004
Why do they even bother to cover the US Presidential Elections for 2004?
I am shocked by the amount of newsprint and server space devoted to the Democratic primaries this year. They've had - like what - 24 debates so far? And check out this set of columns on Slate...
One way to look at it is that the press is doing its bit for democracy, ensuring that Bush's rivals get at least a fraction of the air time he gets. The other way to look at it is that they don't want a one-sided election season, 'coz otherwise Bush won't advertise too much and the media would be the poorer for that.
The election cycle so far has been so uninteresting that I would be really surprised if Bush doesn't win easily. The interesting thing, to me at least, is that no one in the Democratic field except for Dick Gephardt has any sort of experience that comes close to George W Bush's today (it would have been an altogether different comparison 4 years ago). Yes, one would think that the Democratic President would have better policies and fewer wars, but if you play the experience card, then most of the Democratic candidates don't quite cut it.
There's nothing 'fresh' about any of the so-called 'serious candidates' either. Worse still, the non-serious ones are freaks!
