DON'T LET THE MEDIA CHOOSE OUR CANDIDATES

Don't let the press choose our candidates for us. The press has taken sides and has chosen its favorites. Now the journalists just sit back and hope we'll follow their lead.

It's no secret that journalists covering Barak Obama are smitten. His charm and the likeablity factor that alludes Hillary are intricate parts of his personality. But what they aren't covering are the details of his positions. He's allowed to make statements without ever offering a plan to implement them. But he's still a golden boy. Beware.

With Hillary, no one challenges her past. The media certainly does not. When she calls Bill's eight years in the White House her experience and adds another eight as a do-nothing NY Senator, what is she taking about--the travel agency debacle, the failed and embarrassing stab at health care reform, the lost records that sat on her coffee table and mysteriously disappeared? The press doesn't deal with those things, and hope we've forgotten. Search high and low for the positive contributions of her senate year, but it will be like searching for WMDs in an Iraqi desert.

Duncan Hunter was a blip on the journalistic screen. The press ignored him, and he quietly went away. Guiliani was counted out by the press as was Fred Thompson. And did you know that by suspending rather than stopping his campaign, John Edwards is still eligible for government campaign funding? Is he angling for a position in the next White House? The press hasn't covered that possibility.

The press is definitely anti-Huckabee, and keeps asking when he's going to give up and go home. Huckabee has to keep repeating that he's in this thing for the long haul. Defending his run has superseded talking about issues--his tax reforms, for instance.

According to the media, John McCain is the Republican candidate of choice. He's far from conservative stances, and his rebellion against the Republicans is glossed over. His dalliances with some of the most liberal Democrats in the Senate like Ted Kennedy please the press, so the media is all for him. They didn't call him on his lies about Mitt Romney's war position, and they apparently want to push him to the forefront. The press keeps suggesting that it's time for Romney to call it a day as a presidential candidate. They've left him on his own.

It's bad enough the the press can't or won't treat the candidates neutrally. It's worse that we tend to listen and follow their suggestions. If it's inevitable that McCain will get the nomination, we think, then why not vote for him in the primary? If the Clintons have an unbeatable machine, why not vote for her now?

The fact that we are treated as stupid doesn't mean we have to act that way. Use your own reasons for voting for a candidate. Most important--VOTE for the person who is closest to your personal choices.
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