GAVEL GAMUT
By Jim Redwine
www.jamesmredwine.com
(Week of 07 October 2024)
NO BLOOD, NO RATINGS
Tuesday, October 02, 2024 on CBS was a disaster for the TV networks but a breath of clean air to American voters. Unlike the mud wrestling between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump on ABC on September 10, 2024, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance engaged in a civil and substantive debate on important issues: Immigration, the Economy, Reproductive Rights and the Middle East. The post-debate analyses by the national media of the presidential debate was like hearing post-game comments from a home-town fan.
If Harris and Trump explained their positions on any issue, I did not hear them. But I did hear the media chortle over the competing charges of lying, criminal intent and incompetence. The commentators were simply giddy with the prospect of selling advertising by regurgitating gossip. In contrast, Walz and Vance never called one another a crook or a liar and several times agreed that the other candidate had a good position on important national problems. The media hated it. The talking heads wrote the entire vice-presidential debate off with the disdainful description that it was “Mid-Western Nice”.
Harris is from California; Trump is from New York. In between is America. My wife, Peg, once had a tee shirt that depicted the United States as New York (along with the rest of the east coast states) on the east edge, California (and Oregon and Washington) on the west edge and everything in between just a black hole. The caption read: “A Bostonian’s view of America.” Apparently, many in the national media see the United States that way. And the inhabitants between the east and west coasts are seen as unassuming simpletons who do not have the sense to come in out of the rain or to cast aspersions on all with whom they disagree.
Midwest Nice, or as your mother might admonish, “Say something nice or say nothing”, just does not “bleed to lead”. On the other hand, filling an hour and half debate with invective, whether based on fact or based on nothing, can ramp up interest in the populace. Turn on, tune in and enjoy the scrum; we should not concern ourselves with policy or solutions. That is so boring.
In about a month, two of the four candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency will be chosen to lead our national government for the next four years. It might be refreshing if between now and November 05, we in the “Fly Over” part of America could be called upon to do more than just finance the choices those on the coasts make for us. A little Mid-West Nice from everyone might ease the national angst.
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