by Patrick Appel
If you want to hear about policy, Ezra Klein recommends going to the source:
In my experience, you’re actually getting a more serious conversation over the issues if you listen directly to the two campaigns than if you’re reading about the campaign as filtered through much of the media. I mean, here’s the most recent speech Obama gave. It’s almost all policy. And here’s the most recent speech on Mitt Romney’s Web site. It, too, is mostly policy. Even the attack ads are about Medicare!
Drum explains the difficulty of sustained substantive reporting:
This is the problem with substance: it doesn't change. Once you've outlined both campaigns' positions on something, there's not a lot new you can say about it. So you either repeat yourself (boring!) or report on campaign nonsense (non-substantive!). If there were dozens of issues to report about, that would solve the problem, but the plain fact is that most campaigns are won and lost based on three or four major positions. And if those are the things the campaigns are focused on, then those are the things you need to report on.
Paul Waldman puts things in perspective:
Every campaign gets negative, and every campaign gets personal. Think back on the presidential campaigns you've lived through. Was there a single one about which you'd say, "That was really a substantive, serious campaign about issues"? Of course not. This is American politics. It's trivial, it's misleading, it's demagogic, and it's negative. We can set aside for another day the question of whether the fault for that lies primarily with the politicians or with the voters (I lean toward the latter), but we shouldn't be surprised when the campaign doesn't turn out to sound like a luncheon at the Brookings Institution.
The Dish 