i'm calling it. i'm calling it RIGHT NOW. and i want people to place bets on it. i mean, i'm not willing to bet my massive salary on it or anything. but a cup of coffee. a pint of ice cream. your eternal admittance that i am right about everything and superior to all.

clark will be the democratic nominee.

i am totally going to eat major shit if i'm wrong, but i don't care.

it might be that my obsession with the media and what it puts out is going to prove my stumbling stone here, because since i'm obsessed with the media, i'm just assuming everyone else is as well. but anyway, i cite that because i really think people are forgetting that shadow candidate in the nominee process isn't a person - it's the media. they are controlling pretty much everything. they're the ones who catapulted dean into the forefront - not that i'm dismissing his grassroots campaign and obviously dedicated supporters - but if the media hadn't started focusing on him and devoting constant stories to him, i don't think he'd be doing as well, and i don't think the general perception would be that he's the front-runner. i mean, who is this "general perception" even taken from? the media! pundits and articles and reporters. someone says it, then they all say it, and it's so. (i wonder if there's ever been a comparison done on how many articles/news reports have been devoted to dean and his campaign since the start, and how the percentage compares to stories on everyone else...from slate: "For the second time in five months, Howard Dean graces the covers of Newsweek and Time simultaneously." ) i mean, i'm not discounting polls either...but those are also an inherent part of the media, because they distribute them to the public. so if you see a poll in usa today saying dean is like 500 percent ahead, it's a fixed idea in your mind that, oh, well, he's ahead...i'm not explaining this well but if the media really pushes a poll and it's on the front page of every paper, that in itself will change public opinion one way or another despite the stand-alone findings of the poll. i mean, you hear it so often - "dean is clearly the front-runner, so we should vote for him."

but now, dean has been the focus for way too long. there's been too much exposure, and people are getting bored of him. more importantly, the media is getting bored of him. there's only so many stories you can write about how he used the internet to get money. anyway, the media, for whatever reason i don't know, has now picked up on clark. i talked about it last night with tommy, and everywhere i look this morning - i really think he's about to explode in the next week or two, ESPECIALLY if he beats kerry in new hampshire, which is looking more and more likely. poor kerry. he's a beautiful man with a lot of hair, and i really like him, but he's lost the plot in terms of the campaign.

so now there's a front page poll in usatoday (getting cited EVERYWHERE might i add) that says dean and clark, nationwide, are nearly at the same percentage (still with both of them getting smooshed by bush in november), and this poll - well, it's going to change a lot of things.

it'd weird to think that maybe a couple of hundred of pundits and deputy chiefs and reporters can change the perception of the country towards the nominees...weird, but not abnormal. sad or not. it's really the way it is. and the only way i'll change my mind about the whole thing is if dean pulls some amazing stunt and doesn't completely lose the attention of the media later on. he desperately needs a new angle or spin put on to him, a positive one that is.