The MSM’s Re-Coronation of Hillary Clinton

Before the first Democratic Presidential debate on October 13th, Hillary was struggling in the polls in the early caucus and voting states and being dogged by the email server “scandal” whipped up by Republicans in Congress. The common view was that Hillary’s campaign couldn’t stop the bleeding, the negatives on Hillary’s honesty and integrity were growing worse and the enthusiasm behind Bernie Sanders’ campaign represented a growing threat to her.

But then came House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy with his “gaffe” (in DC, telling the truth is called “a gaffe”) that explained that the Republicans’ Benghazi Committee in the House was only focused on and accomplishing its true goal, bringing Hillary’s poll numbers and likability down so Republicans can takeover the White House.

McCarthy’s “gaffe” was then followed by two more Republicans affirming the anti-Hillary agenda of the Benghazi Committee, Hillary’s solid debate performance, her upcoming appearance in front of the tainted Benghazi Committee that is already seen as a can’t-lose for her and today, the declaration by Joe Biden that he will not be running for President.

While Biden might have found himself struggling to catch up by joining the race so late, he would have provided Hillary with a far more aggressive competitor who was already taking off the gloves and criticizing her before and during his announcement. He would have drawn most of his voter support directly from Hillary, a scenario many Republicans were giddy about, hoping that it allowed Bernie to win the nomination which they (wrongly) believe would doom the Democrats’ chances of winning.

Hillary has had a run of great luck within the last several weeks…and so has the Mainstream Media (MSM). It’s not a well kept secret that the same corporate interests that own media outlets are also big Hillary For President investors. Hillary’s campaign and SuperPAC, Correct the Record, have been big recipients of money from Wall Street, Big Pharma, insurance corporations, oil companies and execs from corporations that own media.

The blatantly missing coverage of Bernie Sanders’ campaign for many months despite record crowds, may have reflected the marginalization the MSM sought for his candidacy as opposed to the candidate their corporate owners contribute to and fund raise for (for example, David L. Cohen, the Executive VP of Comcast, MSNBC’s corporate owner, has hosted fundraisers for Hillary at his own home and is a bundler for her).

One thing that can conflict with media corporations’ supporting the candidate they prefer is earning more money exploiting their problems. It should be easy to recognize that at this point, the MSM loves building people up, bringing them down then resurrecting them. Lather, rinse, repeat. This is because the story lines of each of these agendas work very well to interest and attract viewers which increases revenue from advertising.

So, since the 2016 race first began to be discussed (that is, the day after the 2012 election), we had the MSM playing up how Hillary would likely run in 2016, possibly becoming the first woman President. Hillary’s positives were pretty high after she left office as President Obama’s Secretary of State and as some may have already forgotten, the incessant questioning of the MSM about whether Hillary would run for President far eclipsed the period of questioning about Biden running (though thanks to the Hillary surrogates who swamped the media trying to pressure Biden out of running, his far shorter decision period was framed as a negative about him).

The MSM has spent huge swaths of time in this and previous weeks, “reporting” (perhaps “repeating” is a better description of what they do?) stories in every hour’s newscast about whether Biden will or should run and debating all the imaginary things that could happen if an imaginary situation was to happen (again, this is what passes for news).

Now that their speculative “build up” of Biden and “knockdown” of Hillary stories have evaporated, they have resorted to another familiar agenda (if the news goes away and that’s your product, you’ve got to make more), going back to the “build up” of Hillary as the inevitable winner of the Democratic Primary.

People love stories of redemption and the MSM knows this so they create them. If you could put the stories about Hillary from a month ago side-by-side with stories running today, you’d see the apparent schizophrenia…or more accurately, how fickle the MSM is in flipping back and forth between building up and knocking down public figures.

Today, the stories that seem prevalent in the MSM since the Biden announcement are again representing the coronation of Hillary as the Democratic nominee for President. Now, to be fair, she has and continues to lead Bernie Sanders in the majority of states by big margins in many cases so it is not disingenuous to predict that as things look right now, she is more likely to become the nominee.

But then at about this point in the polls in 2011, Herman Cain was the front runner for the Republicans and in 2007, Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton were front runners by huge leads. Bernie Sanders is still very strong in New Hampshire and has been doing well in Iowa so if he was to win both of those states, today’s predictions on the rest of the primary can be thrown out the window.

The Presidential election is over a year away…over one whole year away. And while the primaries are coming up…but still four months away from the start of the Iowa Caucuses (a lifetime in politics as to what can happen in the meantime), who knows what may transpire between now and then to impact the races in either party?

The odds are currently in Hillary’s favor but it should not be the media’s role to sponsor coronations. Especially since they have been wrong more often before they are eventually right (President Giuliani would agree with me). But their game is to flip the public from one extreme to the other. So now, Hillary is a slam dunk and the rest of the Democratic campaign is just kind of a fait accomli? Until something else comes out about Hillary and then she is damaged goods again? Like a pendulum, the MSM swings back and forth between extreme perspectives because that’s what brings them more money…just as a candidate who is indebted to them for contributions they’ve given to them so they do have conflicting motivations.

A more deliberative and responsible media wouldn’t have been as quick to claim Hillary’s campaign as profoundly damaged or now fully recovered. It’s a long process and it is far more likely there will be more ups and downs, perhaps from a gaffe by Hillary or a new (possibly sensationalized) revelation about her. Then of course the MSM will whiplash their viewers between Hillary’s campaign being critically injured or an inevitable winner.

This game of extremes the media plays to keep viewers watching will continue. That is, as long as viewers don’t remember they have a remote that works.