Thomas McArdle writes for Issues and Insights about mainstream media outlets’ refusal to rally around the candidate who best represents their views.

With Joe Biden eating the now-frontrunning Bernie Sanders’ dust, garnering fewer than half of Sanders’ number of delegates in Nevada despite finishing second, after coming in fourth in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire, you would think the decidedly left-leaning media would be popping the champagne corks. …

… Yet instead, somehow, they’re in a state of panic. …

… [T]he left-leaning media aren’t missing a thing about Bernie’s popularity; the nation’s press establishment would love to place him inside the confines of the White House. But they know that the left doesn’t win elections in the United States of America by putting their cards on the table.

They remember George McGovern’s extreme agenda being mocked as “acid, amnesty and abortion,” and his loss of 49 states to incumbent President Richard Nixon in 1972. They also remember Bill Clinton’s win after promising an economic policy that “starts with a tax cut for the middle class” – a tax cut Clinton abandoned before he was even inaugurated, after which he increased income tax rates.

For Democrats, telling the truth about their intentions doesn’t win power at the ballot box. …

… Not that these same journalists wouldn’t be thrilled if a President Biden or President Bloomberg executed some or all of these items on the Sanders agenda. But by spilling the beans about expanding and tightening government control, the Vermont senator is almost certainly ensuring disaster for the Democratic Party in November, in both the race for the White House and Congress.

It’s a damning indictment of the ideas of Big Government that the media who themselves embrace them are doing their utmost this year to get someone nominated who won’t talk them up.

One might say media outlets are aware of Pearce’s Law: “liberals (or progressives or whatever you prefer) have to understand that your candidates don’t have the luxury of the right-wingers: They can’t always say exactly what they believe — and still get elected.”