Watching the commentary offered on Sunday morning talk shows by pundits whom Kansas City native Calvin Trillin so aptly dubbed “the Sabbath gasbags,” it’s easy to see why the presidential campaign includes so little meaningful discussion of issues.

Supposedly knowledgeable observers sit around a table and discuss not where candidates stand on issues, but about the political ins and outs of the campaign. Will being a woman help or hurt Hillary Clinton? Who gains by Sam Brownback’s withdrawal from the race? Is one candidate hurt by his conservative image? Is another handicapped by his spouse? And on and on.

The political “insiders” talk endlessly about who’s up and who’s down, who’s in and who’s out. There’s no discussion of where candidates stand on any issues; it’s all about whether they’re scoring points in the political game.

How can we expect candidates to focus on a serious discussion of the issues facing the nation if the news media, and particularly the commentators, are only interested in handicapping the race? The commentators themselves may find this an entertaining exercise, but it doesn’t serve American voters.

This situation perhaps is aggravated by the length of American campaigns. Admittedly, it is difficult to sustain a serious discussion of issues for more than a year leading up to the election. Rather than controlling the length of the campaign and forcing candidates to cut to the chase and articulate their stands on issues, the American system encourages media-focused campaigns in which candidates spend millions of dollars on advertising to create an image that will appeal to voters.

When even journalists are more focused on form than on substance, candidates logically assume that where they stand is far less important to American voters than how they look, how nicely they smile or whether they can get off a good zinger during a debate. The need to make themselves look good degenerates into a need to make their opponents look bad, creating an atmosphere in which negative campaigning is the most reliable winning strategy.

The conversation on Sunday talk shows is only one small piece of a much larger puzzle, but it’s a strong example of the vicious cycle in which American politics is mired. If campaign reporting doesn’t focus on issues, neither will the campaigns – which makes the American public the real losers.