Nov 13
2022
Monday Morning Read
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The national political press once more dropped the ball this election season. Too much focus on the horse race, not enough on the issues. I mostly stopped reading the converge after Labor Day. This essay in Popular Information, a new website I’ve come across, summed it up nicely:
More and more political coverage treats elections like a horse race, even though this approach has repeatedly proven useless. Prediction-based coverage comes at a high cost because it crowds out the coverage that voters actually need. To make an informed decision, voters need to know the practical impact of voting for each candidate … The political media has substituted polling analysis, which is something only people managing campaigns really need, for substantive analysis of the positions of the candidates, something that voters need.
A column in The Washington Post echoed similar sentiments.
The most intriguing political read of the week came via Frank Bruni of The New York Times, looking at the field of potential Democratic candidates should Joe Biden not seek re-election. This is not a list of the usual suspects, although they are included.
Here’s a sampling of other smart post-election coverage I came across:
- The Atlantic explains why New York, of all states, went a little bit red.
- Politico says Rust Belt victories by Democrats speaks well of their prospects in the 2024 presidential election. The Blue Wall, it seems, is being rebuilt.
- Boondoggle looks at election results, nationwide and here in New York, from the perspective of politicians who oppose or support corporate welfare. It was a mixed bag.
If last week was disappointing for Republicans, it was a downright disaster for Elon Musk, who, by the way, encouraged his followers to vote for Republicans. His purchase of Twitter could not be going any worse. Coverage includes stories by The Atlantic and NY Times on how the Boy Blunder botched the takeover, and a piece on Platform, another website I discovered this past week, on one of Musk’s crazier ideas for his new acquisition. And to think, Andrew Cuomo gave this guy $1 billion of our tax dollars to construct a plant in South Buffalo to build solar panels, which the plant appears to be producing relatively few of.
Howard Stern recently interviewed Bruce Springsteen. Among other topics, Bruce spoke how he played for Clarence Clemons on the Big Man’s deathbed.
