Update 1: Imaginary Primary Races

First, on the primary race. Last night I was watching the News Hour and one of the guests reminded me of another complaint I have. This person was talking about the expected bounce that would accrue to the symbolic winner of a primary, such as California, irrespective of the number of delegates received, even if less than his or her adversary. What this points out is that the whole talk about the "winner" of this or that race is largely an imaginary construct that the media, rather than informing us to be skeptical of it because it is imaginary, has promoted moreso even than the campaigns themselves.

The way it works is that a state has rules for apportioning delegates. Some go to officeholders or former officeholders and thus in effect were voted upon in advance of the primary date by the general electorate of the state, district, or even the country. Others are apportioned, or go on a winner-take-all basis by subunits of the state, like counties, wards, or congressional districts. So those are district-wide individual races that may be won or lost, but in most cases, being apportioned, the stakes are incredibly small and in a close race at best a candidate may come out with one delegate more than the rival. Other delegates are at large by state, but if the number to be selected at large is not all the state's delegates but just a handful, or if they are apportioned, this makes the actual stakes of a "win" or "loss" insignificant. A few states have caucus systems, such as Iowa's elimination derby. And in some states the delegates are wildly maldistributed.

So the prize of "winning" a state is usually nothing. In most cases, it has a small or nonexistent effect on delegates. And the popular vote for the state, owing to the fact that the rules have little or nothing to do with the popular vote, is really irrelevant.

Now take a step back. I think the media should be telling us how candidates would actually govern if elected, rather than giving us reports of who's ahead and why.

But now add to this that when it comes to giving the horserace coverage, the media do not even focus on the actual delegate contest that will determine the winner. Instead, they focus on the issue of who will "win" this or that state. So Candidate X "carries" state Z, winning 15 delegates to the opponent's 14. (Or maybe 15 to the opponent's 16: It's a mandate!) But X is not going to be governor of Z, or senator from Z. He or she will be the party nominee for a national office where the state of Z may well go to the other party anyway.

So why should the media bother to report who "wins" Z, which is not a real contest with anything officially at stake? How is winning Z any more significant than winning, say, males 18-25, or unitarians, out lesbians that describe themselves as strongly anti-war? The reason, we were politely informed, is because although the mythical race for Z means nothing in itself, the declared "winner" will receive a boost in later races. It's horserace coverage one step removed. While actual race results at least tell you what the voters decided. Just saying who "won" the unofficial contest for most votes tells you only what the candidates will be able to argue to future funders and voters regarding whether they are winning.

Moreover, one must question various things here. Does it make a difference? There's no question that both the major candidates are viable. (How does winning a nonexistent contest prove viability if one lost, tied, or barely won the real contest?) Predictions on this score have repeatedly been wrong. More importantly, one suspects this effect is largely artificial and media driven. Do candidates really have a profound inclination to go out and pitch the fact that they won nonexistent contests? Or do they do it, if at all, mainly because they are aided by being able to say, "if you've been watching the news, you know that we just won Z?"

I think the role of the media is to warn people that the pitch "we just won Z" is misleading because the race for Z is not real, and should not matter much to voters anyway. But in fact, the race for Z is something the media has invented and promoted.

I think there is a word for the media manufacturing ways to look at events in order to report on how the same media-manufactured way of looking at events will affect media-conscious viewers in the future. That word is "masturbation." Thanks for sharing, News Hour.