Old News

Are Clinton and Obama sniping at each other distracting people from the issues? Is the Democratic Party going to self destruct? Nah. While I am not a fan of the comments each have made against the other along the way, is it really that serious?

In a perfect world, yes, it would be better if they would take the high road and bite their tongue until blood runs down their face. I would even suggest that there certainly are ways to defend allegations or to refute an opinion without returning a barb. But, people are human and flawed, so things happen. Who I really blame are the political pundit profilers for their profiling that has nothing to do with party, race, gender, or faith. These profilers are all about good and evil, and they target evil.

This isn’t new news about the news! We all know that bad news sells. Is it me, or has it gotten worse? Both Clinton and Obama were active in Pennsylvania yesterday, for example, at rallies and town hall meetings, and making speeches and answering questions. I’m sure they repeated that today. I am also sure that they answered questions that we all have about their stance on (and I will place these alphabetically as to not suggest personal importance) energy, foreclosures, global warming, health care, Iraq, jobs, oil, recession….. to name a few. But, with our access to cable news 24/7, along with radio, and talk shows, what I know about the campaign yesterday is that Clinton opened the possibility of Obama as a VP, that Obama didn’t like it, that Ferraro spoke way out of turn, and that blacks in Mississippi voted for Obama and whites voted for Hillary. And I heard that – over and over again from every accessible talking head.

You could make the argument that these are facts. Yes, they are. But there are so many more relevant facts that intelligent voters would like to know about. And these have nothing to do with who said what about whom. In any given day of practically non-stop talking, Clinton and Obama are going to slip up. That is also a fact. But, these are good people with a drive and a purpose and neither wants to spend millions of dollars to “get one up on the other guy.”

The pundits enjoy the fighting. It makes for interesting reporting. We all know that. But, I believe that they are attempting to lull us into the belief that the Democratic Party could implode. I disagree. Maybe if the news media would focus on the issues of this election, and stop trying to make us think things are worse than they are AND maybe if Clinton and Obama could really see that they are being played and refrain from giving any new fodder for news bites, we would get facts worth knowing. Actually, who might really win are the newspapers and the internet, as those of us who are hungry for information start to read more and listen less.