Real Housewives of America
by digby
I was not one who particularly enjoyed the 2008 election, what with being out of step with just about everybody on that one. Unlike David's, my endorphins never rushed for Obama or Hillary (and God knows what they did in reaction to McCain, but it wasn't good.) In fact, I would say that my endorphins don't rush for any politician, but I have to confess that Norman Solomon kind of makes them dance just a little bit. (Sadly, it could just be hot flashes ...)
Anyway, despite all that, I confess that it was, at least, an interesting election, high energy, filled with lots of things to write about, even if I did hate a good part of it. This one is just ... well, Matt Taibbi says it best:
Obama versus Romney is the worst reality show on TV since the Tila Tequila days. The characters are terrible, there's no suspense, and the biggest thing is, it lacks both spontaneity and a gross-out factor. In Reality TV, if you don't have really sexy half-naked young people scheming against each other over campfires in the Cook Islands, you need to have grown men eating millipedes or chicks in bikinis drinking donkey semen. And if you don't have that, you really need Sarah Palin.
This race has none of that. Biden is the best character in the series, but for exactly that reason the Obama administration would be wise to bury crazy Joe in a salt mine until the election is over. (The networks have skillfully teased the Frasier-style future spinoff show from this election – the inevitable Hillary-Biden race in 2016 – but they're keeping most of that action under wraps for now). Romney will no doubt stoop to some truly appalling attacks before the election season is over, but he'll do so out of sheer, boring calculation. He's not insane, which is a tremendous insult to a Republican politician.
Anyway, you can expect the media efforts to drum up interest in the election to really heat up in the next few weeks. The Republican race is over now and the networks need to fill those hours. The presidential race is always a great illusion, designed to distract people from the more hardcore politics in this country, the minutiae of trade and tax and monetary policy that's too boring to cover. When the presidential race is a bad show, people might not have any choice but to pay attention to those other things. And this year's version is the worst show in memory. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
Actually, it won't be. It's like one of those Housewife reality shows where everyone is obscenely wealthy and they create phony feuds and stage screaming fights and then magically become bffs the next season. It's kind of a trainwreck that you can't keep your eyes off of at first, but then you just end up falling asleep in front of the TV.
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