Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Who will be president in 2017?


Who will be president in 2017?

No one knows.

A lot of people care, of course, but no one knows.

It’s unknowable right now. Too many candidates, too many variables, too many unknown events yet to happen between now and the 2016 election.


So, why are the news media and the cable TV talking heads unflinchingly fixated on trying to handicap the race for the presidency?

For one thing, it’s more interesting to report the gotcha tidbits that fill our news channels, and it’s easy to get more or less anybody to say something more or less provocative about more or less any of the candidates, more or less all the time. Millions of people read and listen to that stuff, day after day.

It’s a waste of time.

Hillary Clinton, as of today, is almost certainly going to be the Democratic candidate. Yet, the media and the talking heads incessantly talk about gaffes, the knowns and unknowns about the Bill issue, her endlessly politicized and mis-characterized past actions, her wealth, the fact that she’s a woman, the supposed need for another Democratic candidate, unreliable and contradictory poll results….

The media and the talking heads are devoting more or less zero energy to exploring her revealed and presumed policy convictions and her revealed and presumed program intentions.

In other words, the “news” is about the candidate and the race and the political process, with little or no informed reflection on how Hillary Clinton might lead, inspire and perform as President of the United States.

On the Republican side, oh my, the media and the talking heads are on their knees on the sloppy, muddy race track and they can’t get up or even look around, and the only reports they’re offering are about the hoof prints. Of course, there’s going to be a Republican nominee next summer. If the pundits would take a six-month break from trying to guess precisely who it’s going to be, a lot of people would be happier.

Including me.














Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015 All rights reserved.

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