Thursday, July 17, 2008

Must...maintain...campaign...narrative...

As I noted yesterday, the press has almost completely ignored the McCain rape joke. But there was another item that came out a little under a week ago that has also not gained any attention from the mainstream press. In this instance, Cindy McCain gave an interview to CNN where she said that the only way to get around Arizona was by 'small private plane'. Now, I am not an expert on the modes of transportation available to the average American; but I am going to guess that the vast majority (99.99%) of the American public does not have ready access to a plane.

So, here we have an instance where the McCain's reveal their ridiculously favorable financial status and their complete ignorance of how most of us live- but there is nary a mention in the elite press. Now if Barack or Michelle Obama had said this, you can be pretty damn sure that the media would have hopped all over it.

There is a simple, but tragic, reason for this discrepancy- reporting on the McCains' elite status would go against the already decided upon narrative for them. As ThinkProgress detailed, much of the media has determined that McCain and his wife are 'regular people'. As such, we can easily sketch out the rules for how the McCain narrative is to be handled-

Rule 1: McCain is a straight-talkin' man of the people, who is just as regular as you and I.
Rule 2: If any story reveals that he is not a straight-talkin' man of the people, who is not as regular as you and I- then refer to rule 1.

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