Hillary Picks up Another Super-Delegate

by D. Cupples |   MyDD reports:

"Land Commissioner Mark Wilcox, who was selected last month as the Arkansas Democratic Party's last remaining superdelegate to the national convention, said Monday he's supporting the New York senator."

It seems that every time a super-delegate comes out for Obama, the media celebrates with great fanfare.  It'll be interesting to see what sort of media coverage Mr. Wilcox's decision gets.

Comments

[Adam]

"It seems that every time a super-delegate comes out for Obama, the media celebrates with great fanfare."

It may seem that way, but very few of the 60+ superdelegates that Obama has collected since early February has gotten a mention in national media. Only the very high profile ones or the ones from upcoming states have gotten a story. Mark Wilcox is neither.

[D. Cupples]

Adam,

Now you're defending the media? Too funny.

You may be right, which is why I wrote "it seems...."

How are you today?

[Adam]

This counts as defending the media? I mean, really. There's sooooo much to criticize the media for right now; picking on them for ignoring this story is completely missing the point.

I actually think it's reasonable for them to not make a big story about superdelegates. If they made a story about every guy like Wilcox, we'd have had an average of over a story a day about a new Obama superdelegate.

(I do wish it was a little easier to track the superdelegates by state, by position, et cetera. The MSM sources like CNN tend to just list the totals, and it's hard to check those because you don't know what criteria they are using. But in the grand scheme of media issues, no big deal.)

The problem is not that the MSM won't make a big deal about Wilcox. The problem is that they are fixated on questions about Monical Lewinsky or whether Hillary should drop out of the race, or how much of a wimpy bad bowler Obama is, or whether we've talked about that black big mean black evil black preacher enough. They're relatively uninterested in McCain laying the groudwork for his next war by associating Al Qaeda with Iran on four different occasions.

[D. Cupples]

Adam,

You are right about MSM's failures re: the other issues you mentioned (bowling, Monica, Wright...)

But not focusing on a story can influence the national discourse as much as focusing on it can.

You're right: Wilcox isn't that significant nationally, but given that the MSM has made "delegate math" a huge story, every superdel that goes to Hillary is news.

Also, the MSM made a "story" out of 1) that superdel from Minn, who is a member of Congress but not of celebrity status like Leahy; and 2) the UN-confirmed plans of six superdels from NC who MIGHT endorse Obama as a group some weeks from now (just before the NC primary).

I'd say that's disparate treatment, and I wouldn't have noticed it if disparate treatment hadn't been the norm since January.

[Adam]

You're right that there have been some scattered side stories about non-high-profile Obama delegates. But again, a whole ton of low-profile politicians have gone over to Obama in the last month with no mention in the MSM. The NC one is news (IF it's true, of course) because it's a block of superdelegates and because it's an upcoming state. And the Pennsylvania superdelegates that Clinton has picked up have made the evening news.

There's plenty of places to point to for media bias, even moreso if bias simply means hating on Hillary. I don't deny that. This is just not a good example of it IMO.

[Adam]

Olbermann made a brief reference to Wilcox on "Countdown". No real commentary on it; he just mentioned it as a prelude to the latest poll numbers in Pennsylvania.

Incidentally, Olbermann also very briefly mentioned that ABC news story. He actually gave a count of the supporters by candidate (out of 11 soldiers), and claimed that there was in fact only one Hillary supporter.

[D. Cupples]

Adam,

My post on the ABC story was a comparison of ABC's video of the story and the Internet text version, which was different. I though I'd made that clear in the first couple of paragraphs.

Which version was Olbermann talking about?

The video (linked at my other post), as I counted, mentioned 3 for Obama, 2 for Hill and 1 for McCain.

From there, there were clips of Raddatz asking a number of soldiers about issues but we didn't see footage of her asking them about candidates. I suspect that she did, but it was edited out. I could be wrong.

You never know what footage gets scrapped unless you're in the cutting room.

I stopped watching Olbermann many weeks ago. I made an exception for his rant about Ferraro's comments (and his implied painting of Hillary with the racism brush).

I used to love watching Olbermann video clips before bed. That was my fun, catch-up time. Oh well.

[Adam]

I can only assume he asked someone at ABC directly, because the count he gave doesn't match either the print or video versions.

His Ferraro comments were the worst possible choice of what to watch from Olbermann. I knew what was coming there and I walked on the other side of the street. I still haven't seen those comments and I don't want to or need to.

Olbermann has his silly bits, but he does offer a truly critical perspective that is rare from the MSM, and he covers some stories that are horribly underreported. You know you're getting his agenda and his perspective (the questions he asks his guests are hilariously leading), but you get some good content too.

[D. Cupples]

Adam,

Olbermann was near the top of my famous-people-I-want-to-have-lunch-with list. Justice William Brennan would be at the very top, but he's dead.

I never liked Olbermann's overly dramatic style (I just don't go for the emotional stuff in the political context), but I LOVED the content.

I watched his videos about Libby, Bush, and Telecom Amnesty numerous times.

I'm very disappointed that he decided to become a campaigner.

I watched the Ferraro thing just to see what he'd say, but I'd already stopped watching him weeks earlier.

He didn't come right out and compare Hillary to ex-KKK Grand Dragon (or was it Wizard?) David Duke, but he made an implied comparison. The message was clear.

It's a shame: I really liked watching Olbermann.