Anointing a Frontrunner

One of my greatest pet peeves -- and I complain about it every four years -- is the need for the political cognoscenti to have to decide on the presidential "frontrunner" months in advance of the primaries and caucuses. Never mind that voters would love to play a role in this process and, to the best of my understanding, are supposed to play that role. I don't mean to diminish the importance of momentum and fundraising and all that. But just because a candidate is having a good month or two doesn't mean he or she needs to be declared as the likely nominee by November or December or even early January. Yet, we never seem to learn.

The same thing happened again. Massachusetts Sen. John Forbes Kerry, as the history books tell us, was said to be the likely Democratic presidential nominee as of early 2003. He had the war record, the four terms in the Senate, the rich wife, the top staffers, the appropriate initials. But then came Howard Dean. Kerry may have fought in Vietnam, but Dean was fighting now -- against the incursion into Iraq, against the Bush tax cuts, against efforts in his party to run as "Republican Lite." He got the crowds stirred up, he was raising money at a record rate, and he was bringing in new voters like no one had done before. And so we decided Dean was the guy.

Certainly, anointing a frontrunner is not on a par with the transgressions of folks like Jayson Blair (though both are examples of lazy journalism). But when the media lock in on certain candidates early in the process, it leads to a focus on the horse race -- who's up, who's down, who has the most money -- to the exclusion of real issues. Polls suddenly take center stage. Not who has a better health-care plan, but who's leading in the next primary state. Not only does this shortchange the voters' ability to learn about ALL the candidates, but it affects fundraising as well. People like to give money to candidates who will win. And if the experts tell us that Candidate X or Candidate Y is the likely winner, that's where the checks will be headed -- which hurts the candidates trying to get their message out. (Why did Tom Harkin and Al Gore and Bill Bradley and the others get on board the Dean bandwagon early? He was the frontrunner!)

Yet somehow the wisdom of the electorate wins out. In Iowa, the official word was that the race was a battle between Dean and Dick Gephardt, who first won the caucuses 16 years ago, and it would be decided by which of the two had the superior get-out-the-vote effort. But that word was lost on the voters, who didn't like the nastiness that Dean and Gephardt engaged in, and who instead rewarded the "nice guys" in the race: Kerry and John Edwards. Also, for all we heard about the issues, what seemed paramount to Iowa Democrats was who could beat President Bush in November. And, for an assortment of reasons, Dean wasn't that guy.

Now, following the results in Iowa and New Hampshire, a new -- or maybe not-so-new -- frontrunner has emerged. Maybe John Kerry has reached his perch because of the decline of Howard Dean. Or maybe it was because voters saw him as best qualified to be president. But it wasn't because he was anointed by the pundits. When it gets time for voters to have their say -- not to pollsters, but in voting booths and caucus meeting sites -- things have a way of changing. And that's the way it should be.

So let's wait, shall we, before proclaiming that John Kerry can't win in the South. He may or may not be the Democrat who is left standing when the party holds its convention this summer in Boston. But we don't have to make that determination right now. Let's not decide today whether the passion that Howard Dean brought on in his followers has been frittered away. Don't determine which candidate should drop out and when. Let's leave it up to the voters.