NEWS travels in herds, but that does not mean every American is caught up in the whirl of election stories that dominate every headline these days.
A broadcast journalist went around showing photographs of Republican and Democratic contenders to the man-in-the-street recently. Not surprisingly, most of the people he approached could barely identify the candidates, except for the few prominent ones.
Faces of contenders such as Democrat Bill Richardson and Republican Ron Paul remain alien to the ordinary folk; never mind that Richardson is the first Hispanic seeking the presidential nomination, and the 72-year-old Paul created a record in raising US$6mil (RM19.6mil) on the Internet for his campaign.
(Richardson has since pulled out of his bid for the Oval Office after faring poorly in the Iowa and New Hampshire rounds.)
Polls have shown that a number of Americans are fed-up with the daily diet of political stories. To them, there is still a long way to go, election day being 11 months away. Americans pick their 44th president on Nov 4.
A survey last month conducted by The New York Times / CBS News on 1,028 people found that 54% remained inattentive towards opinion polls about the candidates.
About 80% declared that they hardly paid any attention to the campaign. To another question, 60% said they were less enthusiastic about voting.
In New York City, where there is reportedly a Starbucks every 0.05 square kilometres, the hurly-burly of politics is not everyone’s cup of coffee.
“I don’t follow this presidential race closely. I lost interest after the 2000 fight between George W. Bush and Al Gore,” said D.K., a Wall Street executive. Bush’s narrow victory over Gore led to a stalemate that was only broken by a court ruling.
At work, his colleagues seldom discussed the current race to the White House, he said.
“If we do touch on the subject, it would mostly be on how any new monetary policies would affect the stock market.”
The complexity of the US election process creates even less ripple.
Despite the non-stop coverage of the Iowa caucuses on Thursday last week, many people would be hard pressed to explain the term. To make matters more confusing, Republican and Democratic caucuses do not work the same way.
“I’m not sure what it is. We did not learn it in school last time,” D.K. said.
Indeed, a quick check with several students in the ninth and 11th grades found that they were not taught this in school. A 17-year-old pre-college girl also replied “no” to the query.
“It depends on which school you attend,” said medical editor Geoff Marx. In fact, his 10-year-old son had just completed an assignment for his social studies class on what takes place during a caucus.
The long and the short of it: A caucus is a local-level meeting of party members to determine the support for each candidate.
Marx is one of those who have no problems explaining the election process.
“I am fascinated by it,” he confessed. However, he acknowledged the intricacies in the system.
“It can be a bit crazy,” he added with a laugh.
He has been following the White House race mostly through the radio.
“I don’t read the blogs so much. And TV news coverage is packaged more towards entertainment,” he said.
Marx is rooting for John Edwards of the Democratic Party although the former North Carolina senator ended up a poor third in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday.
“He’s more honest and truthful. His policies are closest to my point of view,” he said.
But Marx, a true-blue Democrat supporter, said he would vote for any candidate from the party.
“I just want to see the Democratic Party win this election,” he said.
He does not mind Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama who, according to The Washington Times, is being protected by 12 Secret Service agents since winning the caucuses in the Hawkeye State last Thursday.
Although he had been getting Secret Service protection since the end of last year, the number of agents assigned to him has increased of late due to fears for his safety as a black contender mounting a serious bid for the White House.
The score is now tied 1-1 between Obama and Clinton. She won in the Granite State (New Hampshire’s nickname) on Tuesday against all political predictions and polls.
The next stops are Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina and Florida. Notwithstanding that some people out there are not paying rapt attention, these states will hog the headlines until the end of this month, raising the mercury in the battle for the White House during these winter days.
