If anyone would like an example of just what's wrong with our 24/7 "news" cycle and the need for endless horse race coverage of races that are a long way off, look no further than this segment from Thursday's News Nation on MSNBC.
During the government shutdown by Republicans, we constantly heard the Villagers and talking heads in the media lamenting the fact that they were being forced to cover the Republicans and their obstruction, costing our economy billions of dollars, and how lucky the Republicans were that what they were doing and their irresponsibility was so far ahead of the mid-term elections, because in their minds, voters apparently have amnesia and can't remember anything that happened more than a few weeks ago.
They were also constantly lamenting the fact that they could not spend all of their time covering the botched rollout of the healthcare.gov site, but as soon as the shutdown ended, they all made up for that in very quick order.
This Thurdsay, NBC's Senior Political Editor Domenico Montanaro let host Tamron Hall know that he doesn't have a clue as to what's going to drive voters to the polls for the 2014 mid-term elections, but that wasn't going to stop him from speculating on it anyway.
MONTANARO: This is turning into the key issue for 2014. Now, you know, that said, a month and a half ago, we were saying the key issue for 2014 was the government shutdown, so who knows what's going to actually be the key thing in ten or eleven months or so, but this seems, as Obamacare goes, so goes Obama's presidency. We've seen that in his low poll numbers now.
Now if this thing gets turned around a bit where people start signing up, the web site seems better, then you may see a little bit of a turning of this, but it's definitely an uphill climb right now for Democrats, as they try to push back on this. Especially because, like I said, they're playing in a lot of Republican territory.
Yes, it might be the ruin of Obama's presidency, or it might not. Tune in next week when we bring you yet another edition of "we don't have a clue, but it won't stop us from talking about it anyway."
