Two candidates bowed out of the 2008 presidential race yesterday. While Rudy Giuliani's campaign died a slow and painful death brought on by incompetence, egotism, and hubris, John Edwards' campaign died of media neglect.
Edwards' decline began exactly when it shouldn't have. After taking second in Iowa (and thereby beating presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton), Edwards' campaign was written off. He was slighted in the corporate-moderated debates and got very little press. Without the aid of the news media which was busy helping other candidates get their messages out, John found himself unable to even steer the debate toward the most basic Democratic values of fairness and social justice. Attracted to the very public squabbling of the other two dems, the media focused on personality over message, feuding over substance, and the nation took one more hit because of a lazy and sensationalist news media. We used to get Walter Cronkite at 6:00 Central -- now we get Entertainment Tonight-level fluff.
Of course, Edwards' anti-corporate message didn't help him any in a corporate media world. News networks aren't very likely to report the news that they suck...
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