Glenn Greenwald’s post today on Salon is worth reading to get a sense as to why the more interesting candidates out there — in particular, John Edwards, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul — are treated as little more than novelties (in the case of Huckabee and Paul) or nuisances (in the case of Edwards).
(T)here is a clear dichotomy in both the Republican and Democratic fields — one which is a microcosm of our political system generally — of establishment candidates versus anti-establishment candidates. Edwards, Paul and Huckabee are clearly the latter. And that certainly explains a large part of how the media insufficiently covers their campaigns.
By definition, our most influential media outlets are vital parts of the establishment and dependent upon it in countless ways. They perceive attacks on the establishment to be attacks on them. And thus, most journalists are instinctively hostile to candidates which are outside and critical of that establishment. Journalists just don’t believe that the system on which they depend and which gives them their access and purpose can possibly be fundamentally broken or corrupt. They are, after all, the establishment press.
Such outsider candidates begin as the nerdy losers to be held up by our campaign journalists for adolescent, giggly mockery. If their campaigns prosper, they become the target of outright hostility (see, e.g., the media’s role in the destruction of Howard Dean’s candidacy in 2003). In different ways, that has been the arc of media treatment accorded to Paul, Huckabee and Edwards, all of whose candidacies — for better or worse — represent something significant in our political culture, represent direct challenges to prevailing conventional pieties and dominant power centers, and yet (or, rather, therefore) are treated as silly jokes when they are discussed at all.
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Hank Kalet 
How the heck is John Edwards an outsider candidate? What an insult to Edwards to even compare him to those 2 right wing freaks. He ran with John Kerry for vice president in 2004 and if the vote hadn\’t been suppressed (stolen) in Ohio, we would have Vice President Edwards today. Huckabee doesn\’t believe in evolution and thinks that Intelligent Design should be taught in our schools. Paul is a radical right wing libertarian who would abolish Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP. Paul and Huckabee would be disasters for the country. Edwards is a serious mainstream candidate who would actually do some good for America and Americans. Edwards has my vote.