Media Coverage of Super Tuesday

After surveying the news coverage tonight, I have a brief comment. Overall, it’s been very poor. I can’t single out any particular personality as the culprit. And I think both Jeff Greenfield of CBS and John King of CNN have been very good.

The problem here is that none of the current generation of journalists, even the older ones, have any experience with old-fashioned delegate fights. Tonight is a contest that, especially on the Democratic side, will not be conclusive. Given those proportional rules, we really won’t know the real results until tomorrow. Other than perhaps influencing fundraising, the results don’t translate into the traditional “momentum” that has governed the way reporters of my generation have covered campaigns. Even to talk about winning a particular state is a misnomer. The important question is how many delegates a given candidate won.

As I’ve said previously, like 2000, this election will rewrite the rules of how we look at campaigns.

Menino and McGovern Come Through for Hillary Clinton in MA

Now that Massachusetts is being called for Hillary Clinton, credit has to go to Mayor Menino and Congressman McGovern who collectively have the best political operations in New England. National pundits, in a tizzy over Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama, overlooked the support of McGovern, whose organization in central Massachusetts is so strong. Even further overlooked was Mayor Menino, whom I’ve always said, has the strongest political organization east of New York City.

The results also have to be viewed as a rebuke to Deval Patrick, who failed to deliver MA to his ally Barack Obama.

Super Tuesday Exit Polls

The exit polls suggest Barack Obama is having a big night. How big, exactly, we won’t know until we do a state-by-state delegate analysis.

I can say I think the Baby Boomer crew is overstating the transformative nature of Barack Obama’s candidacy, especially in racial and ethnic terms. Obama is, no question, a smart guy and a terrific speaker. But to me, whether you support Obama or not, it’s just not about race. Like many Americans today — and like many Hawaiians — Obama has a varied ethnic background.

The big appeal of Obama, to me, is generational. As my friend Noam Cohen pointed out in the New York Times, “Barack Obama is a Mac, and Hillary Clinton is a PC.”

I’m a Gen-Xer born after the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy. I recognize Obama’s obvious talents and ability to unite people. But I’m also cautious of glib figures without a sense of political detail. My sense is that most voters my age or younger are very resistant to arguments based on experience, or, more importantly, policy differences aside from the Iraq War.

Yesterday, when, for example, Congressman Richard Neal described Clinton favorably as having “mastered the arcane details of public policy,” it took all the air out of the room on the Clark University campus.

Seth Gitell on Super Tuesday NECN

Watch my Super Tuesday analysis here on NECN.