Jon Stewart hits the press hard for ignoring the existence of Ron Paul, the second place finisher at the Ames Straw Poll. Some of the video Stewart shows from news channels covering the GOP race is truly astounding. As Stewart says, Paul is treated like the 13th floor of a hotel - something that doesn't exist.
Glenn Greenwald identifies the same phenomenon this morning and offers some explanation as to why he thinks Ron Paul is getting written out of the media's coverage of the 2012 race:
There are many reasons why the media is eager to disappear Ron Paul despite his being a viable candidate by every objective metric. Unlike the charismatic Perry and telegenic Bachmann, Paul bores the media with his earnest focus on substantive discussions. There's also the notion that he's too heterodox for the purist GOP primary base, though that was what was repeatedly said about McCain when his candidacy was declared dead.Greenwald's analysis strikes me as correct. Paul challenges the conventional wisdom as to what conservative Republicans believe, what they say in public, and what makes Republican base voters support a candidate. But other than Romney, Paul has raised the most money in the field and other than Bachmann, he's done the best in actual polling of actual Republican voters and caucus goers.
But what makes the media most eager to disappear Paul is that he destroys the easy, conventional narrative -- for slothful media figures and for Democratic loyalists alike. Aside from the truly disappeared former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson (more on him in a moment), Ron Paul is far and away the most anti-war, anti-Surveillance-State, anti-crony-capitalism, and anti-drug-war presidential candidate in either party. How can the conventional narrative of extremist/nationalistic/corporatist/racist/warmongering GOP v. the progressive/peaceful/anti-corporate/poor-and-minority-defending Democratic Party be reconciled with the fact that a candidate with those positions just virtually tied for first place among GOP base voters in Iowa? Not easily, and Paul is thus disappeared from existence.
Moreover, without coverage of Paul, the press is effectively not providing an account of any presidential candidate who is anti-war, pro-civil liberties, and anti-war on drugs. By ignoring Paul, the media presents what is near unanimity as total unanimity. Maybe that's not a huge difference, but it is a real one. Paul has certainly performed well enough to be included in every conversation of the viable Republican presidential candidates, let alone ahead of people like Huntsman, Gingrich, Cain and Perry who have not yet done anywhere near as well as Paul in any quantifiable metric.