The sport of politics. The politics of sport.

How many voters have watched the usual suspects in the establishment press — for the most part, the “liberal” media’s culturally status-quo lineup of thirty- to fifty-something white men — express progressive shock and awe at the ascendancy of a biracial guy named Obama to the heights of presidential aspiration?

How many people find more originality and inventiveness in terms of humor and political satire on YouTube than on the increasingly conservative late-night circuit, including such supposed “cutting edge” programs like the “Daily Show,” with their establishment guests and shallow celebrities?

Infotainment pundits have been progressively mystified by Obama’s ascendancy in American politics. But because we LISTEN TO AVERAGE VOTERS, Red Zone Politics actually saw this train coming. After all, it has been essential for the Democratic Party to rebrand itself as a party that includes more male voters and that specifically targets Independents and Republicans as key audiences. Who in their right mind thought that Hillary Clinton with her strident, demanding tone was going to be the one to make that happen?

My book, “Democrats in the Red Zone: an Independent voter’s take on the game of political perception,” describes the political perception game as it relates to football. We tried to get established media outlets and members of the white boys’ “liberal” media club to look at the book — producers of shows such as “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” and “Real Time with Bill Maher.” But — with the exception of Mike Walter at Washington, D.C.’s CBS affiliate — they ignored us. Why?

Maybe it’s because when the guys who buck the establishment press BECOME the establishment press, they set themselves apart from average voters. They people their fancy stages exclusively with members of their own hot-air class rather than inviting a few unpretentious average people to mix it up with the VIPS-in-their-own minds. Rather than air footage of exit polling interviews with voters, they give us vague “results.” Rather than allow more Americans to be heard, they revel in talking amongst themselves. IT’S JUST NOT THAT INTERESTING!

On www.redzonepolitics.com, we actually have footage of interviews with regular voters who have been able to articulate the dynamics of the presidential race — and especially the appeal of Obama and the TYPE of change he represents — better than most of the conventional pundits, many of whom are so cloistered in their privileged cocktail-party circuit that they have little connection with the rest of us.

The blogging community and the expanding realm of citizen journalism is where it’s at, folks. Now we need to find a way to make sure that more of the public airwave space is opened up to those of us who own it — the public!

Let’s work together to take the microphones and media facetime away from the hands of the few and place it more consistently in the hands of the many. The U.S. media only captures a fraction of the creative thinking and intelligent insights available, thanks to a few fame-cravers. What if, in fact, the ideas are more important than the (relative) celebrity of the people espousing them?

The press as we know it has bought its own hype. Here’s our message to those media producers who can’t seem to get out of their creative rut: Remember what it means to think outside the box. It means going outside your educational and social networks in order to reflect a diversity of thought and experience.

That’s what “progressive” means. It’s time to start practicing what you preach.

Yours Truly, A.F. Cook