The fact is that I am already a bit bored by the US election process. This is odd. because it looks like a tipping point and therefore wildly interesting. The incumbent Prez is dead in the water, the Republicans are staring a spanking in the face and the likely Prez is going to be either a woman or a black man. This leads to lots of fascinating questions. Will white men be able to bring themselves to actually vote for a woman or a black man? How will the Latino vote break? Who'll be the VP?
But three weeks into the Primary process the reason I am already a bit bored is that the media overload is so overwhelming. 2008 will be the most covered election of all time. 24 hour news has a whole 24 hours of each day to fill for a whole year. And on top of that there are the bloggers. It seems that everyone with an internet connection and an opinion is jumping on the bandwagon. During Iowa, NH and Sth Carolina you could read minute by minute dissections of everything that was happening from every angle, reported by both professionals and amateurs. For me, switching between CNN and BBC news meant that I was already getting the remote opinion and minute by minute analysis of pretty much every political correspondent and professor of political science in the Western World. The news channels, running out of people to canvass, then added in the vox pops and on top of that the bloggers themselves, who verbally repeated what they had written on their weblogs (or "blogged") only hours before.
Leading up to super Tuesday this will only become more intense, until the amount of blogging. op-ed, commentary and opinion will become an unstoppable tsunami. Ten months away from the actual election.
God help us all.
But three weeks into the Primary process the reason I am already a bit bored is that the media overload is so overwhelming. 2008 will be the most covered election of all time. 24 hour news has a whole 24 hours of each day to fill for a whole year. And on top of that there are the bloggers. It seems that everyone with an internet connection and an opinion is jumping on the bandwagon. During Iowa, NH and Sth Carolina you could read minute by minute dissections of everything that was happening from every angle, reported by both professionals and amateurs. For me, switching between CNN and BBC news meant that I was already getting the remote opinion and minute by minute analysis of pretty much every political correspondent and professor of political science in the Western World. The news channels, running out of people to canvass, then added in the vox pops and on top of that the bloggers themselves, who verbally repeated what they had written on their weblogs (or "blogged") only hours before.
Leading up to super Tuesday this will only become more intense, until the amount of blogging. op-ed, commentary and opinion will become an unstoppable tsunami. Ten months away from the actual election.
God help us all.
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