Big Media and the Election

Generally, it really grinds my gears that media outlets like CNN, Fox News, and even newspapers of record like the Washington Post have brought political dialog down to the level of the sound bite. Specifically, when reading the Washington Post this morning two things caught my eye:

1. The focus on race and gender.
It almost seems like a no-brainer in the democratic primary. These candidates are making history and that is not to be discounted. However, I think (I hope) that most voters do not choose which candidate to support based on whose demographics more closely match their own. One reason that Clinton and Obama are so successful is that she transcends gender and he transcends race in the constituencies that they gain support from and the issues that they address. I think that the most profound difference between the candidates is leadership style. After the damage that has been done by the Bush administration in nearly every facet of foreign and domestic policy, we need a president with the leadership skills necessary to make good decisions, gather political support, and make America great again. Despite all of the blathering about race and gender from the media, Democrats have different ideas about whose leadership would be best to move our country forward and that how we choose whom to support.

2. The notion that this race will divide the democratic primary.
Policy-wise, Clinton and Obama are not that different. I think that the fact that this democratic primary is more hotly contested, and stirs more passion in democrats, than those in recent years is because of opposition to the Bush administration. Democrats are showing such strong support for the candidate of their choice because we realize that this election is important. We have to elect a democratic candidate that will win the general election and rebuild America. Besides, in order for a party to be divided, it needs a dividing element. There must be an issue dimension. A dividing issue may emerge in the future, but right now the best way to characterize the democratic party is united against everything the Bush administration has done.
The Republicans, on the other hand, are divided. Conservatives are splitting from the more moderate wing of the party. John McCain energizes most of the party, but some of the big pundits from its conservative wing have stated that they would vote for Hillary Clinton over him. The fact that he remains the only viable republican candidate while the democrats are still in a heated battle is a symptom of the parties' primary electoral systems, not division.

Is Big Media being lazy, or is it incapable of fostering a dialog with more complex ideas?