Tuned In, TV Blog, Television Reviews, James Poniewozik, TIME

May 7, 2008 11:53

Calling It, Kind Of, for Obama

Posted by James Poniewozik | Comments (9) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This

I confess I didn't stay up past midnight for the resolution of yesterday's primaries—American Idol or the Democrats, people! I cover one election a night!—but former TV reporter Jim Rutenberg in The New York Times has a good roundup on the sudden and stark shift against Hillary Clinton's chances after the final Indiana returns came in. The standout, already much quoted, was NBC's Tim Russert, who pronounced on the Clinton campaign like a doctor in the E.R. standing over a body and looking at his watch: "We now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it."

Pundits and journalists generally have to be careful about overstepping their bounds and not calling races before they're actually over. But I can't be too judgmental here: the fact is, there comes a point in any primary where it would be malpractice not to acknowledge the facts on the ground, and that point usually comes before the loser concedes. Russert's call seemed a little much and a little hasty to me, but I don't know his sourcing: if he'd actually talked to notable superdelegates, Clinton associates, etc., who were told him something big had changed, then it's a fair call to make. [Update: Ana Marie Cox has further thoughts at Swampland: "Over the past few weeks, I've become increasingly annoyed with the pundits who have been all but pulling her physically off the stage. She is not Huckabee, she's not straggling behind with some kind of symbolic support."]

What surprises me about the sudden rush to call the race is something I've written about before: the sort of punditry meta-game in which the analysts seem not to know in advance what their own reaction will be to a result they've already anticipated. In other words: there were only so many ways last night could have gone. Clinton wins two: game-changer. Obama wins two: end of the road for Clinton. A split, with healthy wins on each side: status quo ante. And finally, two in-between results—one of which we got—where there's a split, but one where one candidate almost wins two.

All those possibilities were there before last night; all were discussed and wargamed on cable well in advance. And yet you had the sense that the on-air pundits didn't quite know how they would interpret the results until they actually occurred, and until they felt the intangible rhetorical tide of what other pundits—and they themselves—were saying.

You ever hear that E. M. Forster quote about writing? "How can I know what I think until I see what I say"? I think TV punditry is like that: they simply can't know what they think until they hear the words come out of their own mouths.

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Reader Comments (9)

carlos_the_dwarf:

I was up (it was only 10pm here in Denver) and it was pretty weird. They spent most of the time discussing how Obama's next big challenge was his veep pick. But the weirdest part was pat Buchannan, why is Pat Buchannan discussing the democratic primary? Shouldn't he be off spewing hate speech somewhere?

Posted by carlos_the_dwarf | May 7, 2008 12:14 PM

James Poniewozik:

@Carlos: Buchanan has been on MSNBC a lot. I believe he represents the Angry White Catholic Male. Or the other one besides Chris Matthews.

Posted by James Poniewozik | May 7, 2008 12:19 PM

DM:

What are the ratings like for this sort of nonsense? I just hit refresh on cnn.com or nytimes.com, and I get everything I need to know. I can't imagine sitting through that kind of inanity for hours. Maybe their audience is just like my grandfather, who watches Fox News for ten minutes and falls asleep with the TV on...

Posted by DM | May 7, 2008 12:50 PM

Molly:

@DM: That's usually how I feel about it, but being from Indiana, I was more interested than usual. I had CNN on all night while I was doing other stuff, probably only seriously watching from about 9:30 to 11:00, starting when Obama spoke, and then heading to bed after Clinton spoke.

Posted by Molly | May 7, 2008 1:08 PM

Chaddogg:

Highlight of the evening (if you stayed up late)?

Watching Wolf Blitzer grill the mayor of Gary, Indiana about the slow roll out of results from Lake County. Highest of high comedy.

Gary - you once again made yourself proud.

Posted by Chaddogg | May 7, 2008 1:55 PM

rhys:

I think the pundits got swept up in the moment when Clinton's lead started shrinking and shrinking and it briefly looked like Obama might actually win in Indiana.

What really annoys me is how these pro-Clinton people rail on the media for reporting on the facts about the Clinton campaign's dire position. It has been statistically improbable for her to win the nomination since before Pennsylvania. So what if she isn't losing as badly as Huckabee did? It does not change the FACT that she will lose. Yet for some reason reporting that fact has been labelled as "biased." It's the exact same rationale that conservatives used to rail on the media for reporting only the "negative" stories out of Iraq. That somehow reporting on the truth, the truth people are actually interested in, is bad.

So mostly the media has been bullied into being ridiculously optimistic about Clinton's chances. I saw a spot that was like "Is Indiana Clinton's road to the nomination?" Uh, no. I'm glad Russert finally had enough and got the balls to finally say the truth.

Posted by rhys | May 7, 2008 1:59 PM

CMR:

Pro-Clinton people rail on the media because the media has been so biased against Sen. Clinton. Joan Walsh, a writer for the liberal Salon, was on Reliable Sources this past Sunday. She said that at every Obama event she has covered the press couldn't stop swooning over him. And she said, yes, "swooning" is not too strong a word. And they also hated Clinton and, again, "hated" was not too strong a word. Ms. Walsh told Howard Kurtz that she hopes to write a long article about the unequal press treatment of Obama and Clinton in this primary after it's all over.

Posted by CMR | May 7, 2008 2:25 PM

saybo:

Marketing guru Seth Grodin has an interesting post today that I think goes in line with the what James has been saying about cable news channels. They are in the business of selling drama, and not in the business of selling news. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/05/the-media-marke.html

Posted by saybo | May 7, 2008 2:36 PM

Masuri:

@saybo

That's a good point. Maybe we'd come closer to actual news if there were no ratings to consider and there was just a government-run agency disseminating facts... Wait. That's China. That kind of sounded less fascist when I started typing it.

Sigh.

It seems like 75% of the 'news' about Hillary or Obama has degenerated into forum trolling. The writer exaggerates, overstates, or makes outlandish claims as if they were perfectly obvious and completely true statements, and then waits for a reaction. Then another troll pops in and provides the shocked, SHOCKED, I say! response to the initial tomfoolery and they feed off each other for 47 pages.

Sigh x2.

All of this has turned me off to reading any political articles and now if I want to see something a candidate said, I find it on ye olde internets and watch it myself. I don't need the spin some dude puts on Obama's words, or idle speculation over whether Hillary uses Botox.

Posted by Masuri | May 7, 2008 5:54 PM

About Tuned In

James Poniewozik writes TIME magazine's Tuned In column, about pop culture and society. Tuned In, the blog version, is about the stuff we used to call "TV," whether it's in your living room, on your computer or--once the networks figure out the technology and line up the advertisers--in your dreams themselves.