OK class, time for a little professorial intervention. Many people have wasted a great deal of brain energy trying to pin down that scurrilous idea of "media bias." Let me break it down for you. In our era of heavily deregulated media, the press, when it comes to the Beltway establishment, no longer has to serve anyone else's interests. It is its own monster. It serves itself.
Afterward, I asked Mr. Harmelink – who was raised Republican and votes for candidates from both parties these days – if he had an answer to his own question.“Well, she doesn’t sound like a flaming liberal,” he said.
“It was interesting, she wasn’t just on a rampage against Republicans,” Mr. Harmelink added. “I’m so tired of the extremes on both the right and the left. I’m looking at any candidate who is off the fringes, who wants to work things through in a rational way.”
And what it wants is, always and ever, the Status Quo. So every election cycle we are treated to the same picture of the American electorate; hopelessly disaffected from both parties (which are controlled by extremists) and always in search of the Vital Center, the bedrock of American Democracy. Regardless of what the parties actually represent, the truth is somewhere in the blessed middle, where the majority of good, politicized Americans reside. I call this tendency Broderism, after its most tireless public advocate, the Washington Post columnist David Broder.
Of course, the myth of the great yawning chasm between the two parties is just that, a hollow, nonsensical fable. You'd need three tubs of Vaseline and a bulldozer to squeeze someone into the narrow space where American political discourse is presently contested. But there we have the corporate press, delivering us people like Mr. Harnelink, who totally doesn't conveniently reinforce their narrative at all!
Now conservatives long ago figured this out and learned to play the game to their advantage, by dragging the national discourse to the right, knowing full well the good Broderists would always be able to find the Mushy Middle. I suspect that Democrats are aware of this as well, but simply have no interest in pulling their own weight. Beware the Left Hand of God, where the sinners lie. Broad is the path that leadeth to destruction of the form of fewer campaign contributions.
Oh, about that. You might have read that Democrats are doing ahistorically well in the fundraising department this year. Behold the glorious return of the prodigal son, Big Bidness, back into our waiting arms. I'm sure that won't return with any...complications.
But Big Bidness is also restless. His temporary alliance with the social conservatives has backfired, creating an unpopular monster he can no longer fully contain. Yet he also worries that Democrats will not be able to keep the populists and dirty hippies off his back. Behold, the Broderist fantasy, Unity 08, funded almost entirely by a small group of big donors. Don't worry, though, they'll find popular support. And you'll see it on CNN.
Of course, if the Democrats could be coaxed into supporting that nice Hillary Clinton, perhaps they could be made to reconsider. After all, she's not a flaming liberal or anything.
