When the Handicappers Have an Interest in the Race

For members of the political journalism community, the presidential election race every four years is akin to what the quadrennial Summer Olympics are to athletes.

It is their supreme moment, the time to use all the talents they hone in the interim and to showcase them in front of a large and attentive audience.

It is also, for many of them, an opportunity to move out of the pack or from the local level into the national spotlight (as Atlanta reporter Judy Woodruff did, for example, covering the Jimmy Carter campaign in 1976).

This year, as the season approaches, there is a recurrent nightmare that chills the blood of that army of political reporters, editors, producers, anchors and researchers who work for newspapers, newsmagazines and networks, not to mention the consultants, pollsters and academics who are their sources or talk-show guests.

The nightmare is this: that the Democratic nomination, the only one under contest this time around, is effectively over and done with by the end of January or the early part of February.

For the succeeding six months, until the Democratic convention in Boston in late July, there is no compelling political story, meaning no front-page bylines, no lead pieces on the evening news, no roundtable discussions on “Larry King Live,” no daily adrenaline fix out on the campaign trail.

It could happen.

If Howard Dean wins Iowa and New Hampshire, and parlays those victories into additional wins Feb. 3 in South Carolina and other states, it would be the equivalent of Jimmy Carter canceling the United States’ participation in the 1980 Moscow Olympics -- a giant downer.

So it was no surprise that the same week Dean’s Democratic foes ganged up on him in an Iowa debate, all three main newsmagazines featured highly critical cover stories on him -- acknowledging his status as clear frontrunner but eagerly pointing out his flaws and weaknesses.

Or that the country’s leading newspapers and television networks have been running uncritical features plumping up the character, nobility and prospects of other candidates in the field.

Or that reporters in the field, and their enablers in places like the ABC News online outlet the Note, promote the buzz that John Kerry is on the move in Iowa, Wesley Clark is gaining traction in South Carolina, Joe Lieberman’s focus on New Hampshire is showing promising signs and so on.

Truthfully, the stories that are being written today don’t mean all that much in terms of votes.

Dean faces a bigger challenge when the voting actually begins in Iowa on Jan. 19. That is when the press corps will set the bar for the various candidates. If Dean is riding high at that time, his bar will be set exceedingly high, whereas some other candidate could be deemed a big winner because he exceeded expectations set very low.

Skeptics of this thesis should consider 1984, the last time we faced a comparable situation. Incumbent Ronald Reagan, like George W. Bush this year, had no primary challenger. Former Vice President Walter Mondale was the overwhelming frontrunner against a large field going into the Iowa caucuses. Were Mondale to win there, he would be likely to wrap up the nomination within weeks. Mondale did win -- formally, at least. He lapped the field with more than 50% of the votes. “None of the above” finished second, with 19%. Gary Hart got only 16%.

So guess who made the covers of the newsmagazines and the leads of the evening news shows? Hart, who, the media insisted, had finished higher than expected. He became the fresh face in American politics, quickly was anointed the new frontrunner and used his new status to overwhelm Mondale in New Hampshire.

Like Apollo Creed in “Rocky,” Mondale got up from the canvas, shook off the blow and eventually prevailed. But not before an exciting and prolonged battle to the convention, turning every reporter’s nightmare into a dream.

This time, even if Dean performs well in Iowa and New Hampshire, one of the other candidates is likely to be anointed the fresh face, the anti-Dean. A third-place finish in Iowa or even a fourth-place finish in New Hampshire might be enough to confer that prize.

Dean, of course, has certain advantages, including the fact that he is well funded and is an anti-establishment candidate who starts with an emotional appeal to the party’s base.

And in the end, speculative horse race stories in the media are not all that matter. Dean could stumble and fall on his own, whatever the media say or do, or he could blitz the field and win the nomination early and handily. But to do the latter, Dean will have to beat simultaneously seven other candidates -- and hundreds of journalists.