This week on CounterSpin: media long ago declared the Democratic race for the White House was a two-person race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The campaigns have been squaring off in recent days—on some important issues, and some decidedly less so. This has led some pundits to lament that race and gender have been "introduced" into this campaign. We'll hear what Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report has to say about this.
Also on CounterSpin today, media election coverage can certainly be dispiriting, leaving you to wonder if this is really democracy in action? But one of the worst effects of the coverage might be to make you believe nothing is being done, or can be done, to change the way the process works. We'll talk with someone who doesn't believe that, Rob Richie of the group FairVote, the Center for Voting and Democracy.
Also on CounterSpin today, media election coverage can certainly be dispiriting, leaving you to wonder if this is really democracy in action? But one of the worst effects of the coverage might be to make you believe nothing is being done, or can be done, to change the way the process works. We'll talk with someone who doesn't believe that, Rob Richie of the group FairVote, the Center for Voting and Democracy.
Election Day '09 was a roller-coaster for election reformers. Instant runoff voting had a great night in Minnesota, where St. Paul voters chose to implement IRV for its city elections, and Minneapolis voters used IRV for the first time—with local media touting it as a big success. As the Star-Tribune noted in endorsing IRV for St. Paul, Tuesday’s elections give the Twin Cities a chance to show the whole state of Minnesota the benefits of adopting IRV. There were disappointments in Lowell and Pierce County too, but high-profile multi-candidate races in New Jersey and New York keep policymakers focused on ways to reform elections; the Baltimore Sun and Miami Herald were among many newspapers publishing commentary from FairVote board member and former presidential candidate John Anderson on how IRV can mitigate the problems of plurality elections.