Government of the media, by the media, for the media

Stand back and tell me what you hear.  What I hear is the media saying it is all wrapped up for Trump.  He won 32.5% to Rubio’s 22.5 and Cruz’s 22.1.  That 10-pointer SC win was 8 points lower than the Real Clear Politics average of polls 36-18-17% respectively. There are a lot of people telling polls that they will vote for Trump who don’t bother to show up or change their mind in the last seconds.  That 8 point underperformance was true in Iowa and it was a 7 point underperformance in NH. But of couse, no one ever takes the pollsters to task as having idiot results.

And with a lot of race to come, it could go any way including a brokered convention.  Not for the media who are telling us how we must accept Trump the Inevitable. 

Then consider these early primaries.  Iowa allows you to register that day and has 10-20% turnout decide the thing.  NH has better turnout but is the most open primary in the country.  You can get a motel room and ask for any party ballot if you only claim you are thinking of moving there. (You gotta admit Feb. in NH—really a commitment!)  One tiny hamlet near the Canadian border has 200 people and over 300 votes each primary season.  Sordid Carolina is also ‘open’, but they ask what party you belong to when you choose a ballot.  From this we know that 24% of Republican ballots were given to Dems. 

From this circus, the media claims extraordinary powers of prognostication and chooses our finalists or even the winner forevermore. And all in context of their polls.  Polling is extremely hard today with no land lines in most houses, hence no way to identify voters as voting often or age or even party, the most important information to scale the results.  Thus Trump led in one NH poll 41 to nearest rival at 13. 

And this year I am hearing this ‘establishment’ label but no one defines it precisely.  I think what the media means is that group of incumbent pols in Washington or is it the state party leaders, or donors or even all activists.  Well, I can tell you who most of the activists are in this county and most are not Trumpsters.  So then if he wins, will they work for his campaign?  I have my doubts that 183 people calling on 9000 households will happen like it did in 2010, an off year. Maybe a little literature gets thrown on a few porches.  Trump better bring in some people or maybe keep yelling profanities and strange anti-Republican stances that his supporters love to hear. 

Several years ago I got misidentified as a member of the press at a Reince Prebus speech.  When the journalists all stood up to yell questions at the end of his speech, I quietly retreated to a corner and found myself next to a prominent Republican official.  Not wanting to waste this moment, I started a casual conversation about how the primary season ticks us Oklahomans off.  The same dingbat states come first and let any gonzo vote.  The media divination priests then look at the entralls and tell us who we get to vote for.  Shouldn’t some activists, the real worker bees, the people who care, get some sort of say somewhere? She was entirely in agreement and said she kept mentioning this to the RNC.  The trouble, she leveled with me, is that those states make enormous profits off the circus—hotel rooms, restaurants, plane flights, political tourism.  They essentially bribe both parties into keeping them first with donations of various things.  And then the media wouldn’t much attend if you made, say, Alaska the first Republican primary and left out Democrats.  So what I suggested was that we could have January caucuses and about 200 superdelegates apportioned to the 5 states that are most loyal Republican with the biggest percentages.  The caucus would be open to anybody who had helped with a campaign or who had attended a county meeting during the previous year. We keep records of this. In other words, let the people who care about it really decide.  She raised an eyebrow and said this really was a fair idea, though it means that WY, OK, UT and a couple other very conservative states would get this first balloting.  The moderates would hate it.  The media would hate trying to cover and poll 5 states at once.  The other early states would scream betrayal.

That’s exactly why we should do it.