Mitt Headroom wins Michigan! Meanwhile, media determined to snatch defeat from jaws of Clinton’s victory
This primary season is full of firsts. The first caucus to be won by an African-American with a serious shot at the nomination! The first primary to be won by a woman on a major party ticket!
And now, the first primary to be won by an electronic simulacrum of a human being!
Yes, Mitt Headroom and his injection molded plastic hair have won Michigan. Truly our nation is becoming the land of equal opportunity, where anyone — white, black, male, female, organic, inorganic — has a chance to become President.
And even more exciting: Giuliani beat Uncommitted by, like, 1%! Obviously Uncommitted didn’t go to enough 9/11 funerals.
Now I’m just praying for Pastor Huckabee to take South Carolina. All those people at the World Redemption Outreach New Day Glory Prayer Center or whatever they’re calling the mega-churches nowadays, the people who actually believe that “the most pressing issues” facing our nation are zygotes and gay sex? Yeah. Come on, folks. Bring it home. Baby needs a new pair of shoes.
I’m sorely tempted to go down to South Carolina and visit my relatives for a few days. Pass out some Huckabee flyers. Last I heard it’s a close race between Preachy, Sleepy, and John “War Without End” McCain. Compelling choices, all.
Meanwhile, Hillary did great in Michigan, though you’d never know it from the coverage. This is a perfect example of how the media creates the news rather than reports it. Going in it was understood that if Hillary actually lost against Uncommitted it would be a huge embarrassment; the expected scenario was for her to win by a somewhat larger margin than in New Hampshire but with there still being a significant Uncommitted vote by Obama and Edwards supporters. And that’s what happened, except that Hillary’s margin was actually fantastic. I think she came in at about 56%, which is great.
Nevertheless, the media is determined to stick to the down-with-Hillary script. African-American voters preferred Uncommitted (which means Obama) two-to-one over Hillary, and the youthful demographic still went for Uncommitted (mostly Obama). Well, why not? Hardly surprising. The primary season has just gotten started, and it’s a fight. The nominee will almost certainly be either Clinton or Obama, and neither candidate’s supporters is giving up anything yet. Even Edwards’ supporters are still kind of hanging on, though I think he’s done.
But the media is spinning Michigan like it’s the end for ol’ Hills. The headline in the Washington post is, I shit you not: 44 Percent Vote Against Hillary. It’s infuckingcredible. The woman didn’t even campaign in Michigan, this is only the second primary, Obama has tremendous national support, Edwards is still in the race, the Obama and Edwards supporters in Michigan deliberately voted Uncommitted — and she still walked with 56% of the goddamn vote. Yet the media is spinning it as a failure.
Who told that old Clinton joke here the other day? About Bill walking on water and the next day’s headlines reading, “Clinton can’t swim?” Yep.
4 Responses to “Mitt Headroom wins Michigan! Meanwhile, media determined to snatch defeat from jaws of Clinton’s victory”
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kim says:
Hillary’s failure to command a staggering majority of the votes in a primary where she did not have to contend with Obama, Edwards, et al is HUGE news. You couldn’t write in a candidate and the majority of the people who voted uncommitted did so as a message to Hillary that she was not addressing the needs of Michigan voters.
I think you’re taking a different twist on this than was meant or what reality holds.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:17 am EST -
blondie says:
Way to go, WaPo. Your headline is not only attention-grabbing, it’s untrue. Did you ever think that someone voting for Obama or Edwards may also like Hillary, but prefer another candidate only slightly? Huh? Voting for one person does not make me anti-other person. Drrr.
Under WaPo’s faulty premise, Bush.’s recent approval rating of 34% means that 66% of Americans disapprove of him. But hey! That’s not what the polls actually say. [headscratch] http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm
Critical thinking is just too haard.
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Professor Zero says:
Good post.
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The Ghost of Violet says:
I think you’re taking a different twist on this than was meant or what reality holds.
No, I’m not. Before the Michigan primary, Clinton’s camp was expecting her to get at least 40% of the vote, hopefully more. Anti-Clinton people were trying to set expectations at closer to 60%, but Clinton’s staff rightly rejected that as a ridiculous standard for success since there was a strong campaign by Obama’s people to vote Uncommitted as a sign of support for Obama.
As soon as I saw that Clinton came in with closer to 60% (I think the final tally is 58%) I knew it was a huge win for her. And then I saw that the media had decided to stick to its script anyway and pretend it was a defeat.
