HARKIN ET AL. IN THE END, IT'S THE VOTES THAT COUNT

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 13, 1992                   TAG: 9202130561
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
HARKIN ET AL. IN THE END, IT'S THE VOTES THAT COUNT
SURE, Iowa is U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin's home state. Sure, the other contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination chose not to contest Harkin there. And sure, the Iowa caucuses Monday night were lightly attended compared to four years ago.
Still, isn't something a tad askew when the pocketing of at least 40 (of 49 at stake) real-life convention delegates - Harkin's reward for taking 80 percent of the vote in the Iowa caucuses Monday night - is deemed no more newsworthy than hourly changes in what a few New Hampshire voters are telling public-opinion pollsters?
The only New Hampshire poll that really counts is the one next Tuesday at the ballot box. Which is merely to update a tried and trite truism, and one especially evident this year: Mostly what the unofficial polls are finding is that the New Hampshire electorate hasn't made up its collective mind.
Yet on the basis of a brief spurt in those polls, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton a couple of weeks ago was accorded front-runner status and the cover of Time magazine. This week, on the basis of a similar spurt, former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas is said to have the New Hampshire edge.
On the Republican side, there's talk of inroads in recession-ridden New Hampshire by columnist-turned-candidate Pat Buchanan. Against a sitting GOP president, before even a single vote is counted?
Barring President Bush's incapacitation or withdrawal, and there's no reason to foresee either, of course his party will renominate him.
Nor must the New Hampshire primary inevitably be the be-all and end-all for the Democratic aspirants. When the results are in, the focus likely will be on "momentum." But momentum doesn't choose convention delegates; that'll be the job, next after New Hampshire, of caucusers in Maine and voters in Maryland and Georgia.
Putting caucus and primary results in context is a legitimate part of the media's reporting task. Because they were uncontested, the Iowa caucuses were less important this year than in 1988. The New Hampshire primary is of special interest because it comes first, and the results will influence the course of the campaign thereafter.
But the hard-core nugget of news from the Iowa caucuses isn't whether Tom Harkin did or didn't exceed (whose?) expectations. The hard news is that he has 40 national-convention votes that he didn't have before. Similarly, the hardest news out of New Hampshire won't be whether Clinton or Tsongas - or, on the GOP side, Bush - is on a roll; the hardest news will be how many national delegates each candidate captures.
When this distinction is forgotten, interpretive reporting risks becoming self-fulfilling prophecy. It ought to be the nation's Democrats and Republicans - not network anchormen or newsmagazine cover-choosers or the editors of national magazines - who choose presidential nominees.
Keywords:
POLITICS

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB