Blog @ MoreWhat.com

Scanning the titles of the latest offerings on the frontpage of Real Clear Politics (only because they have a lot of them in one place) one must make choices about how many will be reviewed. How to pare down the list is job one. ‘Obama on His Heels’ was the first on the list and did not provoke much interest here as it seems common knowledge so what kind of revelation is that?

The next one is almost as meaningless. ‘McCain Gets a Bounce, But Will It Last?’ is offered as if anyone thinks the current polling is significant or that it will remain static. The next title is from the NYT’s so the title doesn’t really matter as that source of bulk fish wrap has proven time and again they are dedicated to continuing down a destructive path that has been demonstrated by publishing items that risk national security as well as failing to catch plagiarizing staffers before the damage was done almost like they condoned it.

While you can be a fan of Fred Thompson for several reasons, I don’t know if I’m up for a puff piece on his opinion of John McCain. That outta confuse the left. That this blog would neglect reading a piece about a Republican written by a Republican. But it is not entirely different than ignoring a piece from Slate titled ‘McCain Camp Perfects Its Outrage Over Sexism’ since one can probably guess what that’s about and who cares? Even though WaPo seems to do a decent job most of the time, a story about one of Sarah Palin’s kids is something to ignore given the out of bounds focus on candidates’ families this political season. But the king of reasons not to read the following piece is because it is written by Paul Begala and published apparently at HuffPo calling McCain/Palin liars. How original in a political campaign.

‘Meat: Making Global Warming Worse’ is less appealing and seems out of place minus knowledge of the connection if any being made to politics than a story about taxes even if presented by Gingrich and pal at the Weekly Standard. With some polls showing both McCain and Obama viewed about equal on taxes there is likely little anyone can say to improve the public’s outlook on the topic.

About half of the remaining titles on the top of the page make reference to Sarah Palin in name or subject matter announced. That sums up most everything anyone needs to know right now. The dominant story since McCain selected his running mate has been his running mate. The underlying story has been the suggestion that the McCain/Palin campaign has been more disciplined, stealthy, quick to respond and confound the left including the Obama campaign staff and the top of their ticket. The reason you know that is even the lefty media has been focusing on Palin as long as she has been a candidate. And the polls indicating all metrics that matter are moving in McCain/Palin’s direction and may last beyond the life of the typical convention bounce. So why read all those goofy stories? If more people would reduce their consumption of stories reflecting the media focus away from the issues they might find the issues being discussed again. That might be needed information heading into the election.

McCain/Palin have already won the war on personal attributes and Obama/Biden and the MSM credit the left with the high ground on issues so let’s have the candidates focus on what matters. And let it all not be determined by the upcoming debates. Keep the issues in the news. Let the sound bites fly. Have the MSM redeem themselves by doing their jobs. An honest discussion of the issues among the candidates with the media only refereeing the political tendency to substitute campaign tactics for facts.

Pick the top ten issues and ask each candidate to answer how they would deal with them. The economy, war, national security, defense, social issues, character, personal philosophy, etc. Enough with the flash and campaign tactics, it is past time to deal with real issues and afford the voting public to make an informed decision. This blog has already made a decision but there are plenty of people out there who may not have made a selection yet. Let’s get on with it.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Public Affairs, wordpress, Politics, campaign, election. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.