Rocky Mountain Breakdown: A Disaster on Day One

I spent most of last night watching the convention.  Between all ego tripping, the pure nonsense, and the political positioning going on, there wasn’t really much to report. Trust me, the only way that anyone should be forced into watching the goings-on in Denver, is when they have several beers in them.

( ….the sacrifices I make for BitsBlog readers!!!)

However, in going over last night in my aching head, this morning, the one thing that keeps popping up, and the one thing that is threatening to become a major story out of all of this, is the story of Hillary Clinton and her not being on the ticket.

Wouldn’t you just know, that this would be all about the Clintons, eventually?  That’s all I heard about last night.  The polls showing that there is a good amount of anger among Hillary Clinton’s supporters, even amongst those who have said that they will bite the bullet and support Obama… and the running joke of the Day is that the whole thing is Hillary Clinton’s fault for failing to say forcefully that she was not in fact treated badly byBarack Obama. I think in the end, we both know better; she certainly thinks she had treated badly, and more certainly her supporters think so.  So much for the illusion of a united Democratic Party.

And who can blame the press for this?  I’ve talked about it here, for several weeks now.  Frankly it was the only thing that was even remotely interesting in the Democratic ticket, even the veep stakes, had Obama actually picked someone worthwhile, can’t hold a candle to the heat this thing with Clinton is generating.

See, that’s the trouble with conventions the way they have developed over the last 20 to 25 years or so; there is really no news to report.  No surprises in the script.  News people are going to concentrate on every situation where somebody goes outside the pre-scripted parameters of the convention, these days.  They hit the prayer mats every night praying fervently for such events to occur so they’ll have something to talk about… It’s only natural. Put a massive news people in one room the size of any convention center in any city in the country, and their natural instincts are going to take over.  They’re going to find the story, particularly if it doesn’t happen to match the script that they’re being fed.  It is akin to seeing a large aquarium filled with fish fighting over one piece of food that’s been tossed in.  The usual phrase describing this phenomena is “feeding frenzy’, and that’s a pretty accurate description for what I’m .seeing this morning.

Every little clue about the Clinton thing was examined in detail.  For example word on the floor was that Clinton advisers would not be attending Obama’s speech to the convention.    Hillary’s speech.  Bill’s speech.  Chelsea’s speech. I suppose that absent giving the Clinton’s actual power, it could be said thatObama couldn’t have been more accomidating. But of course, that’s exactly what Clinton and her supporters want; power.

Apparently, time also wanders into the picture.  When you have hours and hours of wall-to-wall coverage to fill, you have plenty of time for the Ann Lewis types of the world to drool into your microphones for however long they can keep breathing. Nice job, CNN.

Mind you, that’s not a matter of press bias, that’s simply a matter of the press is nature taking over.  Alas, that that kind of hunger for new stories doesn’t seem to work very well when the subject is Barack Obama, himself.  so potent is the nature of the Hillary Clinton’s story that it even overrode the “dead cat” bounce that Obama got out of Biden’s selection as fodder for discussion. either that, or the press would just as soon not discuss that particular gem, just yet.

However that is, the upshot of all of this, is that the Democrats have succeeded in losing their direction in this thing, on the very first night. They’ve lost all control of the message is getting out to the American people. This cannot be good news for Obama’s presidential hopes.

By the way, it should be said that the stock market took a tumble yesterday. Perhaps they were listening to the rhetoric coming out of Denver?

I’m sure the Democrats won’t say so, but by any objective measure, there is no other conclusion to draw but that last night was a disaster for the Democrats. if I’m John McCain, I’m smiling this morning.