Look, It’s Not All About Momentum: Clinton, Obama, and the Fourth Estate

I have a couple of pet peeves best directed at the television and print journalists. So listen up.

First, don’t ever again, TV journalists and “expert” guests, preface your remarks with the word, “look.” I don’t quite remember when this interjection began making the rounds but now there is hardly a talking head who does not now do this. Watch any of the cable news programs, from MSNBC, to CNN or, if you can stomach it, Fox, and you’ll see what I mean. Chris Mathews of MSNBC’s Hardball is fond of having a “Hardball # of the day,” and he ought to have one of his interns count the number of times either he or one of his guests uses the word.

Another thing that makes me peevish is the indiscriminate use of the word “momentum.” Barack Obama has the big mo, until Hillary got her mo back in New Hampshire, before she lost again after Super Tuesday, then put an end to Obama’s mo in Ohio and Texas, and so on. This sports cliché has little meaning under the best of circumstances but it is an understatement to say that it has been reduced to complete and utter gibberish by the TV geeks, print scribblers, and those writing on the Internet. A Yahoo search today of Clinton and momentum turns up 20,900,000 hits; Obama and momentum results in 19,400,000. That’s a lot of mo, so much, in fact, that editors everywhere ought to say enough is enough and fire the next cretin who uses this term other than to point out how absurd it is.

While journalists aping one another by using look, nearly every utterance, is merely an annoyance, the use of momentum is part of the breathless and misleading narratives these journalistic quacks have been crafting, replete with all the artificial ups and downs of the candidates and the near hysterical drama these boobs work so assiduously to inject into the race.

Many of the same folks now squawking about momentum or any other of the pat terms or phrases they are so fond of, are same ones who, after Super Tuesday, correctly said, based on demographics and Obama’s strength in caucuses, and the like, that it was possible that Clinton would not win again until the Ohio primary in March. It wasn’t a cause for concern, wasn’t dramatic, just a reasonable supposition based on an analysis of voting patterns and demographics. And that was just the problem—not enough oompf for the gentle readers and viewers who need excitement, drama, and mania just to turn on the tube or plunk down 50 cents for the paper.

The truth is, the Democratic race is exciting enough and has its own drama without the need for any synthetic ups and downs, and dramatic but misleading storylines. Apparently managing editors simply believe readers and viewers are so stupefied that the strategic and procedural battles over the superdelegates and the seating of the Florida and Michigan delegates just won’t cut it; that the issues of electability and voting patterns based on race, income, and gender are just too boring; that issues like health care or the war in Iraq pale in comparison to fits and starts and vagaries of...momentum.

So, oh almighty media to which we plug in, stare at cross-eyed, or permit to stain our fingers with ink from god knows where, stop carrying on about the big mo (or even little mo) would ya, and spend more time focusing on the issues, the reasons voters may be voting the way they are, and which candidate is most electible in November.

Look, who knows, readers and viewers may actually find this stuff interesting--especially if they aren't overwhelmed by all the momentum.