"Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel also took part in the debate."
After an entire article hyping Obama and Hillary, this is all Kucinich and Gravel get? I start to wonder whether the media has a bigger role in picking the "serious" candidates than we give them credit for. I'm sure Kucinich and Gravel said things in the debate that were just as noteworthy as what Hillary and Obama said, but because the media has decided that they're marginal, they will never get any press. What if the media suddenly decided to cover Kucinich on an equal basis and with equal seriousness as they cover Hillary? I sort of wonder whether his popularity would increase.
Of course, I'm the worst kind of hypocrite because I support the heck out of Kucinich's positions on most issues, but I've also fallen into the trap of not seeing him as a "serious" candidate. But perhaps at some point you have to realize that if the media isn't going to take a candidate seriously, then you have to take the best of who they do take seriously. Because ultimately, the undecided American electorate is going to decide who to support based largely on how a candidate is portrayed in the media.
See Dean vs. Scream, 2004. A candidate that the media built up with hype and then destroyed just as quickly due to a simple distorted microphone.
