The trouble I have with stories like this has nothing to do with accuracy or the media at all:

But I'm not focusing on the accuracy of horse-race predictions here, but instead, on the fact that the traveling press corps endlessly imposes its own narrative on the election, thereby completely excluding from all coverage plainly credible candidates they dislike (such as Edwards) while breathlessly touting the prospects of the candidates of whom they are enamored. Their predictions (i.e., preferences and love affairs) so plainly drive their press coverage -- the candidates they love are lauded as likely winners while the ones they hate are ignored or depicted as collapsing -- which in turn influences the election in the direction they want, making their predictions become self-fulfilling prophecies.

My problem is that this is accurate yet Democrats often have so much trouble figuring out how it works.

If the Media love unfettered access, and the Media love to predict who will win and the Media are able to anoint the next president, then why aren't we better at working them?

I could, and did, say in the past that Hillary Clinton would be a great president but that, since the media dislike her, would be a poor general election candidate. Obama, by contrast, is loved by the media.

And there you have it: if Democrats were smart, we'd always choose the media savvy pol to run against the crusty, whiny GOP idiot. Instead of whining, why don't we recognize media bias and use to elect progressive, intelligent, hard-working officials!

Is that too much to ask?

New Hampshire is tonight, but the narrative has already been written.