(HOST) Veteran A-B-C News correspondent and commentator Bill Seamans says that, so far, this primary season has been one of the toughest in recent memory on those experts who make a living predicting our political future, and he suggests that we take moment to pause – and pity the poor pundits.
(SEAMANS) This has been a difficult campaign for the pundit, that journalistic analyst whom the dictionary calls "a learned person who offers commentary as an expert on a certain topic." It’s been said by some political science scholars that it’s really the punditocracy who choose the presidential candidates because of the influence they allegedly have over what we the people think.
Another opinion comes from an anonymous sage who said, "All the pundits ever do is come down from the hills after the battle is over and shoot the wounded." Well, after they missed anticipating Hillary’s sensational upset victory in New Hampshire they, themselves, were among the wounded they had to shoot.
The pundits couldn’t blame the media because they are the media – so they blamed the polls for their failure overlooking what has been written in the Bible of Journalism – those who live by the polls die by the polls.
Our question this morning is what effect will the results of the Ohio and Texas primaries have on the confidence of the commentariat to tell us what to think from now on? As for the major issues, I’ve heard some people complain that they don’t know any more details than they did twenty debates ago about how the candidates would try to solve crisis problems as President.
The candidates have talked in noncommittal generalities. It’s time the pundits push beyond Hope versus Fear, New versus Old, and Denounce versus Reject. It has become more of a smear campaign than an issue debate. Hillary so pressured the media into getting tough with Barack that one pundit said they were intimidated into demoting Obama from walking on water down to just walking on eggshells.
We would like to hear the candidates debate such politically sensitive subjects as excessive corporate war profits known as blood money, the possible need for a military draft, how to stop overseas tax evasion, and alleged corporate control of their parties. The candidates talk effusively about helping veterans but none has endorsed a proposed renewal of the great original World War Two G.I. Bill of Rights which offered free college tuition or vocational training that gave new lives to over six million veterans – the kind of help urgently needed now.
Since the pundit has not been able to extract specific details from the candidates’ fog of generalities the product of his or her commentaries has been authoritative non-clarification.
After miscalling the results of a couple of major primaries pundits have become extra cautious, some even timid. But after the voters expressed their preferences yesterday in such critical elections perhaps the road to political pontification has been cleared of the debris of failure and the pundit will regain the courage to ask tougher questions and again say something that illuminates rather than clouds our outlook.