The Media and the Democratic Primaries

[crawjo]

How much do you guys think the media is controlling the race for the Democratic primary?

For months, it seems, the major news outlets basically ignored Edwards's campaign. And then, he gets the endorsement of the Des Moines Register and now everybody's talking about him. Positive stories are being written about him in all the major newspapers around the country, because he got the endorsement of The Des Moines Register, of all newspapers.

This is not an attack on Edwards at all. I just find it odd the way the press all seems to crowd around one idea (such as "Dean is unbeatable") like little kids playing with a soccer ball, and then boom, somebody kicks the ball in a different direction and they all crowd around again: ("Dean is beatable, Edwards is surging," etc...)

How much should we be bothered that our presidential nominees are picked in this manner? I mean, relatively insignificant states like Iowa and New Hampshire become extremely important with the way the primaries are set up, and the way the media obsesses over the winners and losers. The media seems intent on making the race for the nomination a two-man race by the end of the NH primaries. What does that say, that voters in Iowa and New Hampshire can hold so much power? Or do they?

[willy]

Does it really matter? This bunch has as much a chance of winning this year as the Detroit Tigers do.

[walto]

It's partly a function of the press liking a real battle and being uncomfortable with a sure winner, partly a matter of all the candidates ganging up on any front runner (feeding nasty stories to the media, etc.). Partly a prisoner's dilemma thingy. I understand it can all be seen on "Survivor."

[Gordon B]

Originally posted by walto
It's partly a function of the press liking a real battle and being uncomfortable with a sure winner, partly a matter of all the candidates ganging up on any front runner (feeding nasty stories to the media, etc.). Partly a prisoner's dilemma thingy. I understand it can all be seen on "Survivor."

I agree with your first two points, 100%. I'm not sure where the prisoner's dilemma comes in unless you mean for the general election. If A attacks B and B doesn't attack A, A wins the nomination and vice versa, If they attack each other, it's 50/50 but they are both weakened for the general election. If neither attacks, it's 50/50 but with a better chance against Bush. Thus, A should attack B, regardless of whether B attacks A and vice versa. The problem with this is that

a) because there can be communication between A and B, unlike the standard PD, the two leading candidates can agree to refrain from attacking each other.
b) there is no 50/50 equilibrium. As the odds move away from 50/50 , the underdog is better off attacking and risk being attacked back than to sit back and lose.
c) There are more than two candidates in the race.

[BFrank]

An interesting site related to this issue:

The Campaign Desk - by the Columbia Journalism Review

[walto]

I'm not sure if this answers any of your questions, Gordon, but here's something off the web on the prisoner's dilemma with more than two participants:

Phillip Pettit has pointed out that examples that might be represented as many-player PD's come in two flavors. The examples discussed above might be classified as free-rider problems. My temptation is to enjoy some benefits brought about by burdens shouldered by others. The other flavor is what Pettit calls "foul dealer" problems. My temptation is to benefit myself by hurting others. Suppose, for example, that a group of people are applying for a single job, for which they are equally qualified. If all fill out their applications honestly, they all have an equal chance of being hired. If one lies, however, he can ensure that he is hired while, let us say, incurring a small risk of being exposed later. If everyone lies, they again have an equal chance for the job, but now they all incur the risk of exposure. Thus a lone liar, by reducing the others' chances of employment from slim to none, raises his own chances from slim to sure. As Pettit points out, when the minimally effective level of cooperation is the same as the size of the population, there is no opportunity for free-riding (everyone's cooperation is needed), and so the PD must be of the foul-dealing variety. But (Pettit's contrary claim notwithstanding) not all foul-dealing PDs seem to have this feature. Suppose, for example, that two applicants in the story above will be hired. Then everyone gets the benefit (a chance of employment without risk of exposure) unless two or more players lie. Nevertheless, the liars seem to be foul dealers rather than free riders. A better characterization of the foul-dealing dilemma might be that every defection from a generally cooperative state strictly reduces the payoffs to the cooperators, i.e., for every player i and every j greater than i's threshold, either B(i,j+1)>B(i,j) or C(i,j+1)>C(i,j). A free-rider's defection benefits himself but does not, by itself, hurt the cooperators. A foul-dealer's defection benefits himself and hurts the cooperators.

The game labeled a many-person PD in Schelling, Molander 1992 and elsewhere requires that the payoff to each co-operator and defector increases strictly with the number of cooperators and that the sum of the payoffs to all parties increases with the number of cooperators (so that one party's switching from defection to cooperation always raises the sum). Neither of these conditions is met by the formulation and the examples discussed above. They may, however, hold "locally," i.e., for j close to the threshold of minimally effective cooperation, it may be reasonable to assume B(i,j+1)+C(i,j+1)>B(i,j)+C(i,j), B(i,j+1)>B(i,j) and B(1,j+1)+C(1,j+1)+...+B(j+1,j+1)+C(j+1,j+1)+B(j+2,j+1))+...+B(n,j+1) > B(1,j)+C(1,j)+...+B(j,j)+C(j,j)+B(j+1,j)+...+B(n,j).

[Gordon B]

Ok, now I understand n-person Prisoner's Dilemma. Was that the context you meant, that negative campaigners are "foul-dealers?" In Petitt's example, all of the job candidates were equally qualified. I think that was a neccessary condition for it to work. In a semi-final campaign such as the fight for the Democratic nomination, the leader may rationally stay above the fray but the non-leaders increase their chances of winning the finals, i.e. the general election by negative campaigning.

BFrank, good site, I'll bookmark it.

[walto]

"Was that the context you meant, that negative campaigners are "foul-dealers?" "

Yes.