DON'T BELIEVE THE MEDIA: THERE IS NO ANTI-INCUMBENCY FEVER

The Washington media works in mysterious ways. A group of editors sit around a table and they try to come up with a theme or narrative for the election year. If they can link broad-based sweeping stories from edition to edition, they think we the readers might continue to buy their soapy stories regardless if they have any bearing on the truth or reality. What they want is continuity, drama and intrigue-- just like any Harlequin novel.  But politics is anything but predictable.  It is chaos.  They also seem preoccupied by what everybody else is writing, and have forgotten how critical original primary sources are to a story.

Back in February, CNN released a poll that suggested only a third of U.S. voters think that most members of Congress deserve to be re-elected this year. That's the lowest number ever recorded for that question in a CNN survey, so I kind of understand where they were coming from before we started having primaries around the nation.

In any event, right-wing bloggers and some very influential media types have been trying to lump together, contextualize and explain what is going on in this crazy election cycle. We readers are wired to accept explanations, not just raw data. Here's the thing, though. When the raw data, when the actual news totally contradicts the story of what is really happening in America, do the reporters have a responsibility to tell it like it is? One would think so. But alas, that's not what's being reported at some of the largest media houses in the country.

When the media is more interested in explaining their own stories that fits their business agenda than actually reporting the facts, you get headlines from ABC News that went something like this after a May 4 primary, "Unharnessed Anger:  Incumbents Win in North Carolina, Ohio and Indiana."  Huh?

However, there are a few people out there in the news business that see what's really happening. Rachel Maddow from MSNBC is one such journalist. She has been poking holes in her competitor's stories, and we love her for it. I'm glad some progressives are starting to understand that there really isn't an anti-incumbency wave going on after all.

You would think that these editors and media moguls would slow down this sweeping narrative runaway train.  But no, their anti-incumbency wave theory keeps getting disproven by the facts.  As of today, I am politely asking them, "Can we stop all this foolishness now before you lose any shred of credibility that you have left?"

The New York Times, FOX Media the Associated Press, to name a few, really want to be able to hold on to this narrative that the country “is angry” and the Tea-Partier's are shifting the voter dial right of center on the political continuum. But the truth is all the incumbents are winning their primaries. That's the story.

Case in point. In the June 9 edition of the New York Times, it reads, "Anti-Incumbent Rage Bypasses Arkansas." Here's another one from Reuters, " Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln Survives Anti- incumbent Wave." I guess the wave effect depends on which incumbent fits the story. Unfortunately, they had to contradict themselves in their very own headline.

And, check out this Washington Post headline, "Antipathy toward elected officials and the establishment, a dispirited public is demanding change." So that's the big story, right? Public demands change. It's as if they decided this is going to be an anti-incumbency year whether voters like it or not, no matter what. We have to sell newspapers, damn it! Well, as it is turning out, the anti-incumbency theme is just plain wrong.  It ain't happenin'. 

Here are some facts. In New Jersey, 13 incumbents on the ballot, all of them won. In California, a whopping 52 incumbents were on the ballot and each and every one of them winners. In Virginia, with eleven incumbents on the ballot, all 11 incumbents won. In Iowa, seven incumbents on the ballot--they all won as well. In Arkansas, three incumbents on the ballot, all three incumbents won. In South Dakota, two incumbents who ran, both were winners. In Maine, there were two incumbents, both winners. In Montana and North Dakota, one incumbent each, not one of them a caught the mythical anti-incumbent fever. In fact, if you look at this whole campaign season, all of the races, all together, who among the incumbents has been thrown out? Well, there aren't that many.   

There were a few guys who switched parties and they lost and there were two guys with corruption scandals who lost. According to my sources, Bob Inglis of South Carolina is the only incumbent who got voted down in a primary without a corruption scandal or a party switch or a weird activists-only vote at a convention to explain it. Bob Inglis is the one piece of data supporting the whole national narrative of the anti-incumbency wave. And really, for what it's worth, he didn't even lose yet. He's in a runoff. So the big national, everybody agrees anti-incumbency wave story is a good story. Gimme a break.  Wake up and smell the coffee.

Commentary by Ove Overmyer with prodding from Rachel Maddow.  This post does not relfect the opinion of CSEA, only of the author.