What Pennsylvania Voters Want(ed)

Just before the Iowa caucuses, I wrote [1] that the process let us know what Iowa voters wanted: economic populism, health care for all, clean energy, affordable education and ending the Iraq occupation.

And just before the Pennsylvania primary, we know that political reporters have little interest in focusing on what most voters are focused on.

The campaign has gone off the rails, almost completely detached from what's on the minds of voters.

To be sure, the campaigns themselves hold some responsibility for manufacturing outrage at trivial incidents. But the campaigns also know that when they unveil policy ideas, they garner little coverage. Personal sniping at least guarantees national TV coverage.

Like much of the recent coverage, tonight's post-election punditry is almost surely going to focus on demographic differences—playing up divisions, stereotyping Pennsylvania as a festival of race and class warfare—when in fact there is great unity in Pennsylvania and across the nation about what needs to be done to get America back on track.

Demographic differences in their perspective of the candidates surely exist and can't be completely ignored. But the coverage has gone out of its way to stoke those differences instead of digging deeper to find the broad range of issues and concerns that cut across those lines, and then ask the candidates how they will address those issues.

At the risk of doing what the media elite has done, and presume too much about what's on the mind of voters, I submit to you that Pennsylvania's electorate would have far preferred a contest with the deep focus from their media on their economic struggles and the failed Iraq occupation draining our resources.

They didn't get it, and unless we speak up louder so the media can hear us, we won't get it for some time.