Michael Ventura: "It's in the interest of the media to pretend that John McCain has a chance..."

[villager]

from the latest "Letters at 3 a.m. Column:

Least Reported and Most Important Numbers:

It's in the interest of the media to pretend that John McCain has a chance in a national election against Barack Obama and/or Hillary Clinton – and a surprising number of smart people buy that storyline. It's dramatic, after all. Pundits cite this poll and that, though polls got both New Hampshire and Super Tuesday severely wrong. Look not at the polls but at the numbers. On Super Tuesday Clinton received a total of 7,427,700 votes; Obama, a total of 7,369,798 (The New York Times, Feb. 7, p.1). Strangely, neither The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Politico.com, CNN, nor MSNBC reported similar Republican totals. However, USA Today (Feb. 7, p.10) gave those totals state-by-state; I counted them up, rounding to the highest thousand. John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee together won the votes of roughly 8,393,000 – compared to roughly 14,798,000 for Clinton and Obama. McCain alone got merely 3,628,000 – less than half the total of either Clinton or Obama.

These voting patterns have been consistent everywhere but in Florida, where Democrats did not campaign, and, in all primaries but Florida, Democrats have turned out in higher numbers than Republicans by a rate of 2-1 (The Week, Feb. 8, p.16). In the Iowa primary, "three times as many Iowans shifted their registration to the Democratic Party as shifted to the Republicans" (The New York Times, Jan. 29, p.1). "In the last 45 days of primary registration, 150,633 Californians registered as Democrats, while 39,246 registered as Republicans" (The New York Times, Feb. 4, p.20). In Kansas, supposedly "the reddest state," Republican turnout was just half that of the Democrats' (CNN, Feb. 9). What the numbers say is that if Clinton runs and Obama is not on the ticket, she'll thrash McCain even if many African-Americans desert her. If Obama runs, and Clinton is not on the ticket, he'll thrash McCain even without a large Hispanic turnout.

If the ticket is Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama, they'll grind John McCain into electoral dust. That is why Republicans are having big trouble raising money; their own people don't believe they can win – while, as was widely reported on CNN and MSNBC, Obama and Clinton between them, in just the two days after Super Tuesday, raised roughly $20 million. The real election is being decided in the primaries. Unless disaster intervenes, the next president will be Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. All that folderol about "Hillary can't beat McCain because she's Hillary," or "Obama can't win because he's black" denies the only concrete data we have: money raised and votes cast.

<snip>

More at the link -- including quite a bit about Obama's "Exelon" fiasco, where he kept re-shaping a bill to please the nuclear industry:

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/column?oid=oid%3A591599

[Just-plain-Kathy]

1. "It's in the interest of the media to pretend that John McCain has a chance..."

...Aint that the truth!

[MADem]

2. Well, GE (MS-GOP and the NBC family) is selling him hard, like side-by-side

refrigerators on sale!

They gotta keep their Top Ten Pentagon Contractor status up and running!!

[villager]

3. GE wants to avoid being reduced to competing in an open market...

...at all costs! Fat government welfare checks are much better!