This Huffpo article illustrates how the “news media” determines what candidates are acceptable before the People ever have a chance to vote for them. FOX has decided that it is time to pull Mitt Romney down and to prop up Newt Gingrich. FOX is but one media voice, but it is an especially strong one for many people who will be voting republican. Last election cycle, for example, FOX worked hard to make sure that Ron Paul didn’t get the nomination–it was my sense that had FOX gotten behind him, he might have become the nominee. It is my belief that the cumulative effect of these sorts of media positions almost completely decide who the nominees of both parties will be. I suspect that if FOX wanted Romney to soar in the polls, they have enough influence to make that happen, but they don’t want that to happen, so they will peck away to make Romney look “plastic,” or whatever needs to be said to steer the audience away from him.

The net result of this media input is that the media has influence–too much influence–over who will be the nominees of both parties. The media decides who are the “serious” candidates.  Eventually, the people get to vote on one of only two viable candidates, one a Democrat and other a Republican. That’s one choice greater than countries (like the old Soviet Union) whose political systems are entirely corrupt.