Put a stake in it

It’s as traditional — and tired — as any staple of political campaign coverage: talk to the voters. But here’s a suggestion. At least talk to all of them.

As we approach the highly unrepresentative Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary we’re hearing from older voters in diners. Young voters dissatified with the choices. Undecided voters, as astonishing as that might be.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with these set pieces. The problem is they suck up virtually all the air and eventually sound exactly the same.

We’ve been following Donald Trump voters in diners for seven years (atoning for not paying attention to them in the first place). It’s such a cliche that restaurant and food writers have weighed in. With greater insight than many on the politics beat:

“Diners play a heavily symbolic role, functioning as the stage media outlets use to suggest some kind of fundamental Americanness—despite the fact that these Republican-leaning districts provide only a narrow window into the nation’s soul.”

How narrow a window? Try insular. Consider this survey that found 25 percent of Americans believe the FBI probably or definitely instigated the effort three years ago to overthrow a duly elected government. That’s a frightening number of people but still a significant minority of Americans. People who likely pick up their misinformation on Fox or other right-wing propaganda outlets and share it over coffee, eggs and bacon.

The other easy venue to find this narrow sliver of the nation is at primary campaign events — speeches, living room meet-and-greets and other places that offer food for candidates to chow down on.

If you’re a reporter, you go where the people are.

The immediate retort is Trump has a primary, even if the remaining hopefuls are running for symbolic lightning to strike the twice-impeached, four-times indicted former president whose ballot qualifications are being challenged.

But here’s the thing: Joe Biden has challengers too. Ones with as much likelihood of winning the nomination as their GOP counterparts. No one is covering Dean Phillips or Marianne Williamson because journalists have used their news judgment to say their quests are fruitless. Except as column fodder.

And while they ostensibly have campaign events, they are the unheard trees in the Campaign 2024 forest.

We do hear from people unhappy over Biden’s efforts to deal with inflation or the Israel-Hamas war. People who hear the drumbeat of skepticism from mainstream media that a recession is just around the corner. Or that Biden can unilaterally order another sovereign nation to end its overkill of a population in retaliation for a savage attack on its soil.

Admittedly it’s hard to do what’s referred to as shoe leather-reporting, especially in a country where you can be shot for ringing a doorbell. And as New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen notes:

“…it is not true that a single virtue creates value in journalism. Efficiency creates value too. Contributions from elsewhere — synthesizing known facts, explaining complex issues, putting dots together, reviewing, fact checking, writing about the public world…”

And there are other public venues where opinions can be sampled beyond red state diners. I’m amazed at the lack of reporting on what I’ll call the soccer mom vote. The failure to see the backlash to the Dobbs decision in both red and blue states shows how little effort is given to find women with opinions. Even after they express them at the ballot box.

Of course there’s the longstanding problem of Trump flooding the zone with s—t. From the days when CNN pointed a camera at an empty rostrum to today, when Trump, the master projectionist, greeting the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the Colorado ballot exclusion case declared with little pushback:

“All I want is fair; I fought really hard to get three very, very good people in,” he said, referring to his appointees. He added, “And I just hope that they’re going to be fair because, you know, the other side plays the ref.”

Isn’t that a textbook example of working the refs?

So as Iowa and New Hampshire enter the back stretch and head for home, it seems appropriate to focus on what Biden clearly laid out a day before the January 6th insurrection anniversary:

“…it was on that day that we nearly lost America, lost it all. Today, we’re here to answer the most important of questions. Is democracy still America’s sacred cause? I mean it. This is not rhetorical, academic or hypothetical. Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time.”

And it’s also time to recall what Rosen says should be the watchwords of Campaign 2024.

Not the odds, but the stakes.