Progressives took jabs at the mainstream media for not giving attention to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Saturday wins in the Democratic presidential caucuses. One headline by Democracy Now! read “Bernie Sanders Wins Landslides in Washington, Alaska and Hawaii; Corporate Media Downplays Them.â€
This of course refers to Sanders winning twice as many delegates as Hillary Clinton. The article is mostly short clips of Sanders victory speech and talk of “momentum,†but the end of the first paragraph says, “Saturday may have been the biggest day of the Sanders campaign.â€
If that is true, the Vermont senator should thank the corporate media for not taking a deeper dive in the numbers.
Yes, Sanders won more than twice as many delegates Saturday as Clinton, 55 to 20, according to Real Clear Politics. But Sanders’ delegate count (what actually matters if he hopes to secure the nomination, not how many states he wins) on Saturday was still more than 200 behind Clinton.
However, Sanders still won in a landslide in those states, so why did the corporate media mostly ignore Sanders momentum? Because momentum requires a degree of mass, and Sanders last three wins give him very little in bulk.
Hawaii, where Sanders received nearly 70 percent of the votes, saw a 10 percent drop in voters when compared to 2008. Washington saw an 18 percent drop in voters. Alaska saw a decrease of almost 90 percent.
Sanders doesn’t really seem to be inspiring more Democrats to come to the polls. You can say the same for Hillary, but she, being ahead, doesn’t have to prove as much.
Also, the Alaska “landslide†is less impressive when you know that less than 600 people voted in the state. After adding the total number of Democratic caucus voters in these three states, you’ll find that only 25,129 people turned out to vote.
That’s less than 6 percent of Arizona’s total voter turnout.
The corporate media probably didn’t downplay these caucuses so much, as they just didn’t blow them out of proportion, like they usually do for other primaries and caucuses.
Sanders’ supporters should be thankful that media outlets reported the wins and hope no one reads too much into the fine print.
