Television networks can’t stop themselves from polling, and the recent Fox News survey is more tiresome political reporting in many ways. However, there is an item tucked at the end of the rather lengthy collection of data that is very interesting indeed. (See full text here of the Feb 21 FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll in PDF.)

40. Some people celebrate the multiculturalism and wide diversity of people in the United States, while others celebrate the country’s unity and shared values. In general, are you more likely to vote for a presidential candidate who celebrates the wide diversity of Americans or the shared values of Americans?

Despites decades of daily propaganda from the elite liberal media that multiculturalism is the highest good, 61 percent of voters polled thought that a Presidential candidate who represents “America’s Shared Values” was more desirable than a celebrator of “Wide Diversity” (23 percent).

Six-year-old Calvin’s favorite sport in the great comic strip Calvin and Hobbes is Calvinball. Its key feature is that Calvin gets to make up the rules as he goes along to favor whatever he does.

It’s fun to play Calvinball in politics, too. For example, after the 1968 election, Sen. George McGovern got himself put in charge of changing the rules for how delegates would be selected for the 1972 Democratic convention. He instituted racial and gender quotas, plus more subtle changes, and — whaddaya know? — the delegates selected via George Ball rules nominated George McGovern in 1972. Similarly, in 2008 the Republicans played under John Ball rules (the McCain-Feingold campaign finance laws that give the media more power) and — whaddaya know? — the winner was the media’s favorite candidate, John McCain.

Ann Coulter has the economics of why we can’t get Ronald Reagan-type candidates under the current campaign finance laws.

Ann Coulter  writes on the increase in the media’s power to pick candidates, especially Republican candidates

This is why you will cast your eyes about the nation in vain for another Reagan sitting in any governor’s mansion or U.S. Senate seat. Pro-lifers like to ask, “How many Einsteins have we lost to abortion?” I ask: How many Reagans have we lost to campaign-finance reform?

Aside from celebrities, the totally driven, and billionaires, the field is limited to

Mainstream media-anointed candidates, like John McCain and B. Hussein Obama.

What a bizarre coincidence that a few years after the most draconian campaign-finance laws were imposed via McCain-Feingold, our two front-runners happen to be the media’s picks! It’s uncanny — almost as if by design! (Can I stop now, or do you people get sarcasm?)

By prohibiting speech by anyone else, the campaign-finance laws have vastly magnified the power of the media — which, by the way, are wholly exempt from speech restrictions under campaign-finance laws. The New York Times doesn’t have to buy ad time to promote a politician; it just has to call McCain a “maverick” 1 billion times a year.

It is because of campaign-finance laws like McCain-Feingold that big men don’t run for office anymore. Little men do. And John McCain is the head homunculus.

You want Reagan back? Restore the right to free speech, and you will have created the conditions that allowed Reagan to run.
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