Hello Goodbye

Since I’ve last blogged, we’ve lost a few presidential candidates. We thought we lost Rick Perry back riiight after Iowa, but then he put on some tights and marched (or maybe jogged?) onward to South Carolina. Michelle Bachmann ended her run right after Iowa. I thought I’d miss her gaybashing and pretty much utter ridiculousness, but I almost forgot she left us until I started to write this. I guess that says a lot about how much the media and I cared about her.

Then there was the end of the Huntsman campaign, which I felt more acutely than anyone else since my dad loves him. Seriously, my dad was hoping he’d make it to the general so he could vote for him. Otherwise though, the media pretty much said goodbye and then forgot about him too.

Now then, why has Rick Perry’s exit seemed more dramatic than any of the others (Herman Cain excluded)? Is it because we thought he was waiting until after South Carolina? No. Is it because we liked him? No, we thought he was nuts. Is it because REPUBLICAN VOTERS particularly liked him? Not really, his upswing was awhile back right after the Ames Iowa Straw Poll and since then it’s mostly been syrup and debate gaffes and mockery from the media and the Republican voters didn’t seem to care anymore. Is it because he endorsed Newt? Maybe?

Nah. I think the only reason we give a crap about him leaving is because we like busy news days, and between his departure, Obama’s Disney speech and Newt’s open marriage issues. That, and we can talk Mitt Romney to death, but it’s boring after awhile. It’s political THEATRE, and you need some more DRAMA. That’s what Perry’s exit is – drama.

But you know what other political theater has happened in the past few days? Stephen Colbert decided to run for President of the United States of South Carolina again. This time though, it seems more important than 4 years ago. 4 years ago it was just a joke; now it’s a comment on the Citizens United decision, the fact money is equivalent to speech, and the crazy, crazy rules and regulations surrounding Super PACs and such. The media likes to play down how AMAZING and nuanced this satire is, how great a job Colbert and Stewart are doing here. Rather, they focus on how this could affect the polls, voting, etc in SC, because they’re so tunnel-visioned on seeing if Romney truly is the inevitable or have they all been wrong.

It fascinates me as a media student to see what is covered in the news, on the cable channels and how it is covered: what gets 2 minutes and what gets twenty, what gets discussion and what gets ‘reporting’ and what gets truly objective, simple factual reporting. It’s all interesting to me, and it’s also hard to write about in a way that isn’t BORING to everyone else, so just let me say – the things we talk about are not always the things we actually care about, and its often hard to talk about the things we care about most deeply.