Elizabeth Edwards To Chris Matthews And Rest Of Media: Ahem -- John And I Are Still Here
January 5, 2008 -- 2:45 PM EST // //
One of the things I'd been wondering was whether John Edwards' slim victory over Hillary for second-place in Iowa would shift the media dynamic of the race and get people to cover it as more of a three-way contest. In general terms, it's already obvious that the answer is No.
On this score, I'd really be remiss if I didn't share with you these wonderful quotes from Elizabeth Edwards on Hardball, where she chastised Chris Matthews and the rest of the political media for slighting her man.
First, Elizabeth was asked whether John would be able to survive if Barack Obama won both Iowa and New Hampshire. She observed that John had come in second in Iowa in 2004, that he had gotten short-shrifted in coverage then, and that this was happening again:
ELIZABETH EDWARDS: ...we had the "Dean scream" in `04, which sort of made second place, which John had -- not mean as much because you all covered that, as opposed to the second-place finish.At another point, Matthews and Elizabeth had this exchange:Now, of course, you`re covering Hillary`s third-place finish instead of John`s second-place finish. So we`re still fighting against you guys.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: I don`t know how John Edwards wins this thing as long as those two are fighting for the nomination. They seem to get in the way. Doesn`t one of them have to get knocked out?Great, great stuff. Elizabeth's short-lived career as a media nudge has been one of the more entertaining -- and salutary -- sideshows of Campaign 2008.ELIZABETH EDWARDS: If knocking -- if John`s finishing second isn`t enough to get him in the conversation with you guys, yes, we have to knock one of those two off in order to get him into the conversation.
Now, I recognize that news orgs have a dilemma on their hands in deciding whom to cover and how to apportion resources. And I also realize that the candidacies of Hillary and Obama are both historic in ways that Edwards' effort isn't. But in a general sense there's no question that the media's treatment of the Edwards campaign has really been an ugly failure on many levels.
Though Edwards had all along been very competitive with Hillary and Obama in Iowa -- a state in which victory is supposed to be hugely important, according to the pundits themselves -- Edwards's campaign was never treated with anywhere near the same scope or seriousness that the others were. The coverage has often been tinged with a snide dismissiveness. This hasn't palpably changed with Edwards' second-place finish in Iowa.
Aside from the historical dimensions of the Hillary and Obama candidacies, there have basically been three reasons that explain the treatment Edwards has gotten: The media loves a two-person race; Edwards' populism was automatically assumed to be a phony and ineffective gimmick because of his personal wealth; and finally, his lack of campaign resources in comparison to Hillary and Obama allegedly meant he could never be seriously competitive.
It hardly needs to be stated that none of these reasons should have determined the extent and tone of Edwards coverage to the degree that they did. Nonetheless, since getting lots of coverage and being treated as Serious by insiders is essential to raising big bucks -- which in turn is essential to getting Serious coverage, which in turn is essential to fundraising, and so on -- these reasons, as frivolous and insubstantial as they are, may end up having played an outsize role in determining the outcome of Campaign 2008.
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