The student media organization of California State University Northridge

Daily Sundial

The student media organization of California State University Northridge

Daily Sundial

The student media organization of California State University Northridge

Daily Sundial

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Letter to the editor

Dear Editor,

The recent opinion article by Betsy Garcia (“The media may have taken away Clinton’s chances”) profoundly misses the mark on why the Clinton campaign finds itself in its current predicament. It is not the media, as Ms. Garcia suggests, it is Clinton and her campaign staff who should bear the burden of this potentially failed campaign.

The Clinton campaign has spent so poorly that it ran out of money before the February 5th “Super Tuesday” primaries and caucuses. The media did not spend the money; rather it was the campaign that spent it on nights at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. The New York Times reported that the stay cost the campaign tens of thousands of dollars. That may be why Senator Clinton had to lend her campaign $5 million.

The Clinton campaign also decided early on to ignore many caucus states, because the process was not to their liking. Barack Obama’s success in winning 12 states in a row is as much a tribute to his campaign as it is a tribute to the ineptitude constantly displayed by the Clinton campaign. The combination of wasted money and wasted opportunity has brought Clinton to the brink of mathematical elimination.

The media, I would argue, has been historically soft on Senator Clinton. She is an inexperienced candidate touting experience, she is a free-trade proponent bragging about her dislike of free trade, she is a Democrat complaining about democracy, and she seeks transparency from her opponent while restricting access to her own financial records (including tax returns). The fact is, the Clinton’s peddle a well-crafted style of language that inhabits the grayest of gray areas all the while reminding voters of their fantastic voyage of self-victimization. The media does not pursue the Clintons, in fact the Clintons outflank the media and move around and through it at the same time. How else to explain this “comeback?”

Last Tuesday was proclaimed a “reckoning” and a “comeback” by almost every major media outlet. But upon further review, it truly becomes a “hollow” victory. Texas, according to RealClearPolitics.com is a tie (92 delegates to 92 delegates). Since when is a tie an integral part of a “comeback?” And since when does arithmetic become disputable. With the Clinton’s, all things are possible.

Let us suppose that it was Obama who one night praised Clinton and the very next morning shouted “How dare you Senator Clinton!” at the sight of 2-month old campaign flyers. Or, it was Obama who attempted to woo pledged delegates from Clinton. The media would trounce and vilify him. He would be called a “cheater” and would be considered “poisonous to the process.” Ms. Garcia’s piece fails to recognize the media’s biggest desire: an interesting story rolled up in conflict. That’s all the Clinton’s have left and that’s all the media needs. One would hope, while searching for a story, the media might thumb through the record of the “Clinton legacy” where one might imagine the uncovering of thousands of dead Ruwandans, or glad-handed presidential pardons given to shady friends, or the sad story of Vince Foster.

Instead, it will be most assuredly the destruction of the junior Senator from Illinois at the hands of this “legacy” that will echo quietly at the Democratic convention in Denver. The media will act, as they always do when it comes to the Clinton’s, as the silly befriended buffoon.

-Timothy Lovestedt

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