Election Coverage has me seeing RED

The election coverage is only a few hours in and already I've had to restrain myself from throwing the remote control at the TV.

You know how sometimes you can't go to your kid's soccer game, so you might call your friend who's there and ask how they're doing? Your friend may give you a play-by-play..."We had the ball for a while, but #4 from the other team stole it and scored. Seth got a corner kick and missed, but over-all, we're playing a great game. The reffing is terrible..." You are calling to see if your team is winning, how your kid is playing. The other team is simply the opponent and that's the only reason they get mention--it's relevancy, not interest that brings them into the conversation. That is exactly how every bit of election coverage has been.

The newscasters are only talking about whether or not Obama will get a state or county. Even though McCain is leading in most areas so far--obviously it's ridiculously early on--he is only mentioned in how he pertains to Obama. In Indiana, for example, they showed how only 4 counties were Democratic in 2004 and already more counties than that are blue now. You really can't call it one way or the other yet, but even though McCain has a slight lead, the "news" people point out how it's already a victory there for Democrats because the numbers are so much better than the last presidential election. Either way, Obama wins by their reckoning. OK. That's fine. Way to be positive. ABOUT YOUR OWN TEAM. This isn't even about Obama for me. It is about the farce that is called journalism. If I were a person of colorful language, there would be obscenities inserted here.

It's not just the presidential election they're doing it with. CNN made a green screen virtual model of what the senate will look like if THEY get enough democrats in office. And it's not just general rhetoric. They were going through each contested race and saying, "See, if the Democrat wins, the square turns blue like this...and if this Democrat wins, that square turns blue, and if that Democrat wins, then this little squre turns blue." I am not exaggerating. They kept going until their computer froze. Apparently 60 is the magic filibuster-proof number. Fine. Could they just pretend they weren't rooting for a particular side? Just for the night? If not, then they should label their station blue and own their real position instead of allowing this badly disguised partisanship to be called unbiased.

I think this election will probably be closer than the Democrat Journalists think. Republicans aren't as enthusiastic a group as this invigorated Democratic party, but they still vote. Here's my little prediction. If Obama wins, we'll think, "Yeah. I kind of thought that would happen. OK. What now?" If McCain wins, there will be claims of voter fraud and shock at how different the poll numbers were from the actual voter turnout. (Oh, and it will apparently mean that lots of people who said they were voting for Obama, but didn't, are racist. Nice.) That's about how it played out when Bush won in 2004. Remember the stunned-into-shock media? Here's why: They're all Democrats and they don't know any people who vote Republican, so they don't think they're out there. Guess what? We are. And we'd like a little fairness in reporting, if you please. At least starting tomorrow.