Media should put front-runners on back burner

Philadelphia Inquirer
Posted on Fri, Aug. 17, 2007

AMONG ANNOYANCES of the presidential race - apart from its length and its focus on Hillary's cleavage, Obama's "blackness" and Rudy's wives - is media fixation on top-tier candidates.

It isn't good for democracy.

At a time voters want something different (polls put President Bush's approval rating at 29 percent, Congress' at 25 percent), maybe it's time to rethink things.

Like the measure of a candidate's worth.

Instead of crowning "front-runners" on the basis of money and polls, instead of declaring individuals unelectable, how about more attention to candidates' ideas?

Republican Ron Paul, for example, is a physician who calls for greater access to alternative medicine and treatments.

Democrat Mike Gravel says abolish the IRS and the income tax in favor of a national sales tax.

Shouldn't voters know more about such proposals?

The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press just released results of a survey showing that 52 percent of Americans hold negative views of the race so far.

Importantly, it said those paying closest attention are the most negative.

I don't doubt it.

When I talk with Russell Frank, a Penn State associate professor of journalism, he says: "It's hard to think of anything substantive. . . . What stands out is media intrigue with the possibility of the first woman president or the first black president and bickering between their two camps."

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