George McGovern (yes that George McGovern) wrote in the NYTimes, “The competition for the Democratic presidential nomination between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has been long and intense. The news media have given it round-the-clock coverage, including seemingly round-the-clock debates between the two candidates. The campaign has been good not only for the Democratic Party but also for America. It has made millions of voters excited about selecting our next president.”

Senator McGovern is right.

But he is right in a way that worries me greatly.

I don’t have a great passion for John McCain but I do have a great passion for politics. And I do have a great passion for parity.

Senator McCain has gotten short shrift in the media during the 138 months of the Democratic Party Primary that Senator McGovern lauds. Every network story, every front page article is about the Obama v. Hillary battle. Unless it is about the Hillary-Obama battle. Anyone coming to our shores for the first time would think the presidential election is between the two Democratic candidates and that there is no one else in the race.

The Democrats certainly want it that way.

“Early voting was nearly three times what it has been for previous presidential races,” Kate Snow said on the May 13 edition of World News Tonight as she reported from the West Virginia Primary.

Ms. Snow? It was a party primary. It was not the Presidential election. That happens in November, not May.

I have to wonder if the round-the-clock news media coverage would be so skewed if Mike Huckabee and John McCain were having the same nearly equal battle while an anointed Democratic candidate campaigned less loudly from state to state.

See, I don’t think it would.

I think our media has given up giving the candidates equal time. And that is the worst thing that can happen to this election.