Merit-bound Alley

You may remember my recent post on the Portland Obama rally that attracted over 70,000 people. A recent story on Newsbusters brings light to the fact that there was an extremely popular local band, the Decemberists, playing before the rally and questioned who was there to see the band rather than the charismatic candidate.

So, I did a little digging. I didn’t have to dig far (in fact, this is quoted in the Newsbusters article) to find that Obama is fairly popular with the Indie crowd.

Indie rock’s #1 candidate crush Barack Obama is sittin’ quite a bit prettier than he was a few weeks ago when the Arcade Fire and Bruce Springsteen went to bat for him, but the dashing junior Senator hasn’t quite clinched the Democratic party nomination yet. Next up on the primary agenda are Oregon and Kentucky, whose voters hit the polls Tuesday, May 20. Should Obama win a heaping majority of the delegates up for grabs that day, he’ll be within inches of securing the hotly-contested nom.

And look who’s arrived to give Obama the extra push he needs to get on the ballot in November. Why, it’s none other than those kings and queens of the month after, the Decemberists!

Shocking! An energetic young candidate who wants to fundamentally change discourse in our broken government? I can see how that would be Indie popular. However, also look at the last quoted line. It suggests that Obama was not quite following a popular rock band, but they were specifically there to play for the rally!

Can it be? Yes. From the Decemberists website:

Points of Order:
* The Decemberists to play set at Barack Obama Rally SUNDAY

For those in the vicinity of Portland, Oregon this weekend, The Decemberists will play an hour-long set at a Rally with Barack Obama

So, we have a band that was opening for Obama, and really nothing in the Newsbusters article that provides evidence that anyone was there just for the band. In fact, they provide evidence to the contrary with the “candidate crust” quote.

One other important point: should this information have been provided by the mainstream media? Of course it should have! However, there is plenty of evidence that some news venues are more than willing to skew in Obama’s favor. As this election progresses, it becomes more and more evident that we can’t count on the MSM to report the news without skew anymore. That goes for the liberal and conservative media.