The Momentum Fetish — taking entirely predictable results and pretending they’re shocking

March 5th, 2008 Posted in Punditry

Momentum: the idea is that if a candidate wins in one state, he or she will win in others. It is premised on the idea that voters are lemmings.

It is a really dumb idea, and one that the press keeps resurrecting after rumors of its death: Obama had momentum after Iowa; it went away in New Hampshire; he had it in his 11 straight win; last night it went away. No matter that each turn of events is more proof that the concept of momentum is empty.

Interestingly, the Obama campaign put out a memo before the primaries began, predicting every state he’d win or lose except for Maine (they thought he’d lose there). It’s all entirely predictable. And it was Obama campaign people looking at practical exigencies who predicted it; not pundits caught up in their own hysterics, pretending that the campaign is an unknowable flux when it is a known quantity.

Strategic campaign analysis is really irrelevant. But while the press pretends to be devoted to it, what they are really devoted to is taking an entirely predictable process and inserting a Apotreptic moment into it–the dramatic reversal of classical poetics. The news must be shocking and titillating–and where there is nothing salacious the political pornography must be manufactured, so that an entire class of mal-educated politicos can beat off in unison to their own political fantasies.