By Elizabeth A. Skewes
Yes, it’s been a long nomination season for the Democrats. And with Hillary Clinton’s victory in West Virginia, it’s likely to continue, at least until early June.
And yes, the drawn-out battle between Clinton and Barack Obama for the presidential nomination may make it harder for the eventual nominee to gear up for the fall campaign against Republican nominee John McCain. After all, he’s been the de facto party nominee since Super Tuesday in February, so he’s been able to fundraise and focus on the fall election.
But does that really mean Clinton should drop out of the race to make the path to the White House easier for Obama, as some Democrats have argued? And more to the point, have the media made it harder for Clinton to succeed in this contest by focusing so much attention on the calls for Clinton to make a graceful exit?
The answer to the first question is one for the partisans to debate, although Time magazine this week declared Obama the winner … so clearly the contest must be over.
But it’s the second question that is the more interesting one. Since late February, news organizations—often citing “Obama supporters” or “leading Democrats”—have been talking about the idea that Clinton should drop her bid for the nomination so that Democrats can rally behind Obama.
Even with nearly 1,200 delegates still at stake and 16 nominating contests to go before the March 4 primaries in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont, the media weren’t wondering whether Clinton could pull it off, but how soon she should exit the race.
And, as research has shown, how the media cast an election can have a significant impact on how news consumers perceive it. The repetition of the message across media markets – the Boston Globe on Feb. 28 talking about leading Democrats urging Clinton to drop out, the Washington Times on March 22 saying Clinton is being advised to drop her bid, Tribune News Service on March 28, the Wall Street Journal on March 29 – inevitably has had an impact.
The media have long had a role in the nomination process. Thomas Patterson, in Out of Order, argues that the road to the White House now runs through the nation’s newsrooms, and getting traction in the media early on in the election—even before the primaries begin—is critical to fundraising and poll ratings. Just ask John Edwards. But in this year’s election, the media seem to be expanding their influence beyond the pre-primary season and into the nomination itself. Now this may be an artifact of a close contest. The 2004 race didn’t see the media pushing anyone to leave the race, but Bush was an incumbent president, and Kerry was the last person still standing after Super Tuesday. Still, there seems to be a rush to push Clinton offstage, to “tidy up” the race so that there’s one Democrat and one Republican, and so that the narrative can fall into familiar rhythms again. But democracy is messy, and even though it’s inconvenient for the press, perhaps we should simply let the process work the way it’s designed to and let the voters decide. Elizabeth A. Skewes is assistant professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the author of Message Control: How News is Made on the Presidential Campaign Trail.
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