Why Does the Media Make Such a Big Deal About Race and Gender in the Presidential Race?

In Woody Allen's classic film "Hannah and her Sisters", the svengali character portrayed by Max Von Sydow spends a day watching television while his protege Barbara Hershey is out and about. Unsettled by the experience of American television he lights upon the televangelists, the preachers as the worst offenders to both mind and spirit. "Send money for Jesus. Give for Jesus." Von Sydow bemoans and then adds, "If Jesus ever comes back, He will never stop throwing up." Well, in reading the major news web sites (I simply can't watch cable news analysis of the presidential election cycle - it is too insulting), I am reminded of that remark but in light of a much lesser being, Edward R. Murrow, the journalist's journalist. The guy who was about the actual story, about ethics and integrity in reporting. As I read about the latest shenanigans, especiallyas they relate to the two Democratic front runners, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, I would adapt Von Sydow's phrase to "If Murrow ever came back, he would never stop throwing up over what passes for journalism today."

The latest and perhaps most egregious insult to the voter's intelligence and to the process of Democracy (which relies upon a free press as one of its cornerstones), was last week's CNN editorial on the black woman's dilemma this year. It made a huge deal about how black women have to make the toughest choice of all voters - do they vote race or do they vote gender. I can't think of a more debasing premise for a political analysis. It's as if the media is spoon feeding voters reasons why they should question their choices, and is also spoon feeding the so-called Republican base (terribly miscast as a right wing, fundamentalist Christians - hardly what one would call a 'base') an 'explanation' of a presumed eventual outcome and a fan to the flames of 'us versus them' in the same swipe. CNN's analysis, only the most blatant so far, marginalizes a huge number of voters by essentially telling them why they are making the choices they are - black women, in the media's mirror view of the world, can only vote to either further their gender politics or their racial politics, not for the good of the country or for other reasons that may be important to them. And, you righties over there watching this helplessly while the Republican primaries continue to bonce all over the board, be prepared for a huge change in your way of life. Remember this when election day comes. It won;'t be about issues - it will be about gender or race politics. It will keep the subliminal issues fulminating - either we are being force fed strident feminist agenda that threaten the family and the very soul of America, or we are going to reap the rewards of an enabling era of Affirmative Action.

I am frightened for the state of American Democracy when this is what we call news, or even what we call legitimate political analysis. There is absolutely no talk about real issues (like our economic woes, our mire in Iraq (it won't go away, there has to be a long term plan and any plan will have long term consequences and impacts), our health care crisis). I am a voter. I take my way of life in this country seriously. I am a high wage earner, but also a single parent. I have watch my standard of living and that of my children erode. I pay huge amount of my income out of my pocket toward health care necessities that only a few years ago were fully covered and paid for by my expensive insurance. My home costs me a fortune, auto and home insurance are extremely expensive and either can be cancelled in very short order for the huge sin of filing a single claim. College costs a fortune and even though in real dollars I make much more than my parents did, I will barely be able to afford to send my three children - while my parents managed to send seven children to college. On my radar screen the issue of illegal immigration, falls very far down the line - even though I live in California which has a huge immigrant population. But the media tells me that is the hot button issue. The media tells me not only that I do care about that issue first and foremost - but that it is of the gravest concern to the country. The media tells me it is basically an issue of a big fence and forced repatriation for millions and millions - or a continued laxity and the dirtiest of all words - amnesty.

By tthe way - that is also a subliminal gender/race message. Us versus them. Big manly men who will lead their families back to traditional values are for fences and forced repatriation. Girly men and people of color, the ones who threaten the traditional American way of life (presumably of colonial times when we were a protectorate and had the slowest immigration rate in our history - because since then we have been a steady flow of immigrants and new cultures and we were of course founded upon immigration and suppression of the existing culture). In reality, immigration policy is most closely allied with economic policy. It isn't weak girly men who are soft on immigration - it is powerful titans of industry. You cannot have continued rampant capitalism with unchecked profits, etc. in today's global economy without an underclass of workers. If we can't arrange for them in the Mariana islands and we can't openly important prison labor and child labor goods from Asia and other markets - then we need to rely on 'under the table wages' in this country. So, yes, our immigration policy is a major concern to me right now - but not for the bottom feeding reasons the media portrays to me. An undocumented Mexican national is not taking my place in my law firm and is not stealing my clients. Increased foreign ownership of American companies and control over American workers (including ownership of many of our major ports) poses the greatest threat, in my mind. It erodes American earnings, devalues the dollar versus other currencies, and, of course - it is a long term national security issue.

So, I guess like anyone else I can get fired up about immigration, but I know a fence and repatriation of the lower classes (not all the high wage earners here on legitimate visas who are violating them to work here and take key American jobs) isn't the solution. And so do all of these candidates, of both parties. It is a complex issue that requires a painful fix that American industry must comply with in order for it to be successful. We have to cut off the pipe of jobs, and we have to curtail the burgeoning foreign ownership of key American businesses and assets. Which is sort of isolationist in tone, so we probably have to take interim steps. But, as far as I can see, for years, long before 9/11 - but certainly in the wake of it, real issues with our immigration policies (not with people already here who will migrate on their own if jobs dry up, etc.) aren't even spoken of. Because it's not about the issues and how we solve them to make life better for the average American - it is about us versus them. It is about a constant threat to your freedom posed by people who violate your privacy and dismantle our justice system and think big giant fences will solve complex issues or the alternative of weak-minded liberals with a racial or a gender agenda who will keep the flow of illegals coming until this country is run into the ground.

And that takes me to Hillary and Barack. Let's face it, for years she is the woman we love to hate. We have been programmed for that. I don't deny that I personally have a hard time hearing what she says and taking it at face value. But, I look at her voting record in the Senate - as I look at the voting records of all candidates and try to make better sense of that than what I hear - since, of course, I hear nothing concrete on the real issues in the public dialogue amongst candidates right now. I am reminded though, that she beat Rudy Guiliani, as a carpetbagger more or less, in his home state for a Senate seat. They both raised a boat load of money (ding, ding, ding - the real problem with our elections) and New Yorkers who aren't as blue as they like to think elected her anyway. If you broke it down to gender politics that election would demonstrate voters would rather elect the cheated upon spouse who held a marriage together (even if it's just for the cameras, like we presume all political marriages to be) than the hot-tempered philandering husband who moved his mistress into the Mayor's mansion and eased his wife and children out. But that election wasn't about gender politics. We don't elect women because they are women or men because they are men. If we did that we'd certainly reap what we sow. The New York Senatorial race played out the wat it did over issues in New York and what those voters cared about (or were told to care about).

And note when I mentioned the race/gender candidates I called them both by their first names, when the media almost always calls them "Hillary and Obama". Because Obama sounds like Osama. Like my family, Barack Obama could go back to his ancestral home in Africa and there would be Muslims there living a simple village life. Like my family, Barack Obama lives a completely American life and practices his own faith in this culture. He should be analyzed politically for what he stands for politically and what he has done politically. He seems pretty straightforward when he speaks. I like that. But, he's very young and he hasn't even served a full term in the Senate yet, and that I feel he has to overcome with me by spelling out a clear vision. But, in the debates they talk about stuff that isn't so important so they can hit sound bites. Someone from 'the press' develops questions and sets the tone. Republican debates are all about Big Fence and Traditional Marriage, and Democratic debates fall into the mire of defending why talk about Big Fence and Traditional Marriage are irrelevant. They wear themselves out flipping an issue over and showing its underside and never get time to then move on to the real issues - the economy, the candid talk about Iraq and the plan forward, and health care. America stands or falls in the coming years based upon really strengthening its economy and preserving its disappearing middle class. But you have to use a lot of ten dollar words to discuss that issue and the American public is not smart enough to follow. We need to know who is the candidate 'most like me' and why. Who remembers a time when America was all about going to church in public and when we really didn't have folks here who weren't Christian? Who is going to raise up the black family? Who is going to finally render men to the second class citizenship they deserve and move this feminist utopia forward once and for all. Who is going to blast the heck out of those dermed terrorists? Who is going to send back all the Mexicans?

If we allow ourselves to be dumbed down in this way we are laying the paving stones on the road to our demise as a Democracy. Yes, it is a big deal historically that there is a viable female candidate in one of the two major parties. No one could call Shirley Chisholm, solid Congresswoman that she was, a viable Democratic candidate in 1972. The delegates weren't there. She was making a small roar about inclusion. In a Democracy sometimes you do make small roars and you are still heard. In 2000 Liddy Dole was not a viable Republican candidate and she couldn't raise enogh money to get as far as the first primary. She had name baggage form her husband's failed candidacy with Gerald Ford in 1976 and his 1996 failed race against Bill Clinton. It's different right now with Hillary Clinton, and it's different because she is a political insider with victory in her wake - first of her husband and the of herself against the early presumed Republican front-runner, Rudy Guiliani. When big political donors do the math, which they do more now than they ever did before - they find her 'electable'. When you look at people who lag in both parties right now, John Edwards for example - people look at his failed vice presidential run just four years ago and they should be seeing Walter Mondale in 1984 (with a better haircut). Voters might vote for him, but big money isn't going to write the check. And without the checks the issue of voting for him becomes moot.

Race and gender my Aunt Fanny. This election, even on the Democratic side, is about money. Money that pours into media outlets, money that pours into campaign coffers, and money that tells us how to think. Are African American leaders energized about Barack Obama, of course they are. Because he's black? No, because he's electable. This is not Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, outsiders running on the fringe. This is not even Shirley Chisholm with a political record to fall back on, this is a virbant United States Senator who says he is about change when Americans think change is about due. They aren't sure what kind of change and they aren't sure if Barack Obama can deliver this change they want, but they are willing to hear what he has to say as long as he stays in the game.

What I find interesting in analyzing this race is how little elected office experience, let alone national office experience the whole flock of candidates really have. Yes, John McCain has a lot of years in the Senate, and a few presidential campaigns behind him. Which is why some people are now whispering loudly in the media that he is too old to run. They think only really old American remember Ronald Reagan, who was a couple of weeks shy of his 70th birthday when he was sworn in for the first of his two terms. John McCain turned 71 in August. I guess in this country we want people with experience, but who are also young. Is the election now about race/gender/age politics? Wow, what would tie up three huge voting blocks - women, people of color (unless they are women of color, who are naturally conflicted) and seniors (unless they are also women, or worse, yet, women of color).

Okay, so forget McCain the media now tells us. Too old. Forget Clinton, too gender obvious. Forget Obama, too racially obvious. Note for the record Clinton is in her second term as a US Senator and was indeed and active First Lady for eight years. Note for the record Barack Obama is three years into his first Senate term and served seven years in the Illinois legislature before that. I think we also have to forget John Edwards, because of the expensive haircut. He did serve a full six year term in the US Senate.

So, the rest of the pack. Mike Huckabee, served a long damn time as Arkansas Governor - two full terms and some change due to the resignation of his predecessor Jim Guy Tucker. No federal office experience (but neither did Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan). Me, I'm uncomfortable electing a preacher to the US presidency. My own Church, the Catholic Church, ordered Congressman (Father) Robert Drinan to leave office in the 1980s and not run again due to the inherent conflicts between lifetime vows to serve God and a sworn oath to uphold the Constitution. Former priests, former ministers are probably okay, but there's something to that 'no one can serve two masters' business.

Fred Thompson. Love this guy and always have. Two term US Senator, started his political career as the minority counsel to the Watergate hearings. Bridge builder, firm in his convictions - totally unelectable. For all those Republicans out there that think he can't manhandle people, remember he kept Roseanne in line as her factory boss. That's just an aside. He does have experience. Next to McCain he has the most and likely the most impressive record in elective office. Thinks it's more complicated than big fence.

Rudy Guiliani. Two term Mayor of NYC, famously lives off the laurels of seeing that city through the post-9/11 trauma. Lost Senate race to Hillary Clinton, which is the school yard parlance Rudy so loves, means he once got beat up by a girl, in a small pond - and now he wants to take her on in a big pond. I don't like him. I can't get past the way he treated his family. Lots of men cheat. Lots of marriages break up - but not many people move the mistress into the taxpayer supported residence as an intimidation move to get the wife and kids to just move on already. Oh, currently has one electoral vote but thinks if he takes California he takes the nomination.

Mitt Romney. One term Governor of Massachussetts. Also chaired the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and did a great job there by all accounts. Current short term front-runner after winning three states. Went to BYU AND Harvard. Much rumbling that if he took the nomination some Republicans would go with a third party candidate. Not sure why.

I could list for you here where each of these folks stands on our hot button issue of Big Fence, and the other spoon fed hot button - abortion. Because these are the most relevant things to know and because clearly any president could walk into office and overturn the courts on Roe v. Wade (damn the constitution, full steam ahead) - and in taking away the legalisty of abortion would miraculously eliminate the taking of pre-born lives. Because, most Americans, like me, are too young to remember when abortion wasn't legal but everyone got abortions anyway. You can go to websites to find out how these candidates feel about big fence and abortion. But, to find out where they stand on critical issues and how they have voted, or whether they have changed course at some time (don't we all change our minds at some point in our lives and some issues?) go look up their Congressional or Senate voting records. If they haven't served in federal office, well try to find out what you can based on where they stood with their states, did they veto, sign laws? And, if we ever get our media back to being at least partially peopled with journalists who deliver messages free of corporate/political spin - maybe we can ask the harder questions - like are things going to get worse before they get better, and what can we really do to improve our way of life - our international situation. Look for answers that don't develope scape goats for why the problem exists, but that offer solutions to the problems themselves. And son't settle for easy answers - because big problems never have easy fixes.

Race and gender do not matter in this election. Yes, a woman is running and a black man is running, and as usual lots of white guys are running. How many X chromosomes they have or what their ethnicity is doesn't determine each candidate's ability to serve as President of the United States. Each candidate is an individual and one of them will be our next leader. Maybe if we as citizens begin to direct some of the dialogue whoever that next leader is, will really be accountable for what is genuinely important to Americans and will also restore and preserve what is best about America. And that person will have to do this by bringing this country together.