As the legacy media touts poll after poll indicating that Hillary Clinton is pulling away from her Democratic Party challengers in most of the early primary states, the discerning political junkie almost has to stop and ask: why is she being preordained as the party standard bearer for 2008?

In order to understand the political dynamic of her current ride on the Coronation Express™, it’s instructive to look back on the aborted Senate race that took place nearly eight years ago between Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.

Coming off of her husband’s turbulent second term in 2000, the media desperately wanted a Hillary / Rudy race for the Senate in New York. The race was never about who the best candidate for the office might have been, but rather, the titillation factor and impact on the New York media market ratings. The race was also positioned nationally as a referendum on Bill Clinton’s presidency. But above all, the Senate race was all about network ad dollars.

Unfortunately (or, fortunately, depending on one’s point of view), the national media didn’t get the horse race they wanted - ostensibly due to Giuliani’s health issues - but the underlying reason being that his personal transgressions forced him out of the race. For all intents and purposes, Hillary ended up running unopposed in November, 2000. So, is the legacy media establishment now pushing the meme of a rematch between Rudy and Hillary, and that they’re each unbeatable in their respective parties, in order to establish the “entertainment factor”?

No one could argue that there wouldn’t be a modicum of prurient interest involved in such a contest. It’s not hard to believe that a somnolent American public, one which is hopelessly addicted to TV shows such as Survivor, The Apprentice, and Jerry Springer, would be attracted to a race that the legacy media has been framing from the very beginning as Presidential Idol. Is there any other explanation for the focus on John Edwards’ haircuts, the people-powered underdog nature of Ron Paul’s campaign, or the constant reminders of Mitt’s cult-like Mormon roots?

The obvious problem with Presidential Idol is that the average American, half asleep at the switch to begin with, gets plenty of sound bites about haircuts and diamonds, but very few useful data points regarding true differences in policy issues. Yes, political junkies know the nuance, but if you stood on a street corner in Cedar Rapids, Ia. and asked 10 people to describe the differences between the Iraq policies of Obama and Thompson, most wouldn’t be able to answer the question. However, if you asked if Hillary preferred diamonds or pearls, you’d probably receive some correct responses. Ok, so that might be the nature of presidential politics in the “information age”, but if so, who bears the blame? The candidates themselves, or a media whose job it is to inform rather than to position a particular end result in next few months?

The beauty contest audition last week between Democratic Party contenders, billed as a debate, did little to enlighten because so few people actually watch these (mostly) useless exercises in media-controlled candidate positioning. All the debates are doing is reinforcing preconceived notions and media narratives. In essence, all that the candidates did in Las Vegas is follow the script that CNN developed well in advance of the actual event itself.

Is anyone served by this process?

Yes.

Networks and advertisers - the purveyors of the “bread and circuses” environment in America’s declining Imperium.