What's Your Definition Of "Is" Again?

Could someone tell me if this is supposed to be ironic? From Timothy Noah in Slate: Is Obama Winning?

Who's the front-runner in the Democratic primaries? Obviously it's too early to say, but if forced to designate one candidate in the lead, most people would name Hillary Clinton on the strength of her victories in New Hampshire and Nevada. Obama won the Iowa caucus, but he hasn't won anything since then. According to the Associated Press, Clinton has 236 delegates to Obama's 136. That means Hillary's winning, right?

That's one way to look at it. In a properly-ordered universe, there would be only one way to look at something as seemingly straightforward as a delegate count. But that's not the universe we live in. As I explained in an earlier column, presidential nominations are won through the acquisition not of delegates but of momentum, as interpreted by the momentucracy, a loosely-defined group of political reporters and TV talking heads who step in at some point to render a collective and somewhat unscientific opinion about who will acquire the necessary number of delegates some time in the near future. Simple delegate-counting is for pathetic nerds.

But if I may be permitted a moment to hitch up my trousers and insert a plastic pocket protector into my front shirt, in counting up delegates awarded thus far in primaries and caucuses my inescapable conclusion is that as of Jan. 21, Obama is ever-so-slightly in the lead!

Yeah, right.

I'll repeat here what I tell my American Government students, from a Political Science point of view, there is no such thing as "momentum." In this day and age "momentum" is simply the name given to the justification for the media to stop covering other candidates, or at least to stop covering them fairly. Under that definition Obama has had "momentum" for months as the media has gone all gooey for Barack. ("But, he is so dreamy!")

As a result you get you get people like Noah at Slate presenting arguments so specious they make Bill Clinton's testimony on Monica Lewinsky look like an oration by Cicero. In this atmosphere of media given "momentum" every Clinton victory must be tarnished by the media and every Obama misstep forgiven or ignored. If Obama wins South Carolina do you think the media will point out the unusually large black vote in the state makes it a not very good barometer for possible results elsewhere? Of course not. The media has decided who has "momentum" and they will not let pesky things like democratic votes or political realities get in the way of their favored storyline.

I have no dog in this Democratic free for all. Given this singularly uninspiring group of candidates I wouldn't even call the ASPCA to stop the carnage. But I have been shocked at the lack of scruples shown by the press in their effort to denigrate Clinton and champion Obama. And the media wonders why the public views them as no better than used car salesmen...and my apologies to them for lumping the auto folks in with the 21st century press corp(se). [Note: I'm copyrighting "press corp(se)".]

Its enough to drive me to drink.


As usual, Iowahawk makes it all better.