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New York Times: Calvin Coolidge Redux (10/11/07) by Gail Collins
After rightly noting that presidential candidates "almost invariably" are "a bunch of very rich people," this op-ed goes on to claim that "voters tend to admire wealth." While Collins provides no evidence that voters really do admire money in a political contest, her column sure does illustrate that the glorification of cash is a strong tendency amongst political pundits. Falling into a familiar pattern documented by FAIR over the years of the media trying to “weed out” candidates who do not meet the press corps’ ideological preferences, she calls for TV debates to exclude all but the candidates with the most campaign money to spend. Collins appeared annoyed that Fred Thompson "had to share the stage with eight other guys":The next time you see a nine-way presidential debate, people, tell yourself: This is being broadcast by lily-livered poltroons who are afraid of offending Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter. If the networks cut out the people who have no supporters, no campaign donations and who spend less time on the road than the average Mister Softee vendor, they could finish in an hour with far less viewer slippage.
As FAIR has pointed out, "robust public debates with a wide sampling from across the political spectrum would seem to be an empowering democratic exercise"; however, media pundits seem to prefer ideological orthodoxy.
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