Don’t coronate Obama just yet
By JR Hoeft | Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 | PoliticsUpdate (8:20 a.m.): It seems, at least by today’s editorial, that the Richmond Times-Dispatch may agree with me.
—–
It would appear that Barack Obama’s presidential wanna-be tour with his media groupies was just a bit premature.
Gallup Polls are saying that Obama lost 6 points since last month amongst registered voters, yet still leads 47%-44%, and trails McCain in likely voters 49%-45% — a net loss of 5 points for Obama from last month. Both polls are within the margin of error of 4 points.
From a USA Today report on the poll:
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said, “Despite Barack Obama’s international stardom, polls show that we’re in a dead heat and that hardworking Americans have real concerns with Obama’s inexperience and questionable judgment.” Obama’s campaign declined to comment; the candidate has said he did not expect an uptick from the trip, which included Iraq and Afghanistan.
Uh-huh. Sure.
Tags:
Contribute for Conservatism!
Share this post
About the author
Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
We're 75% there! Thank you to everyone who has so far contributed! Just $2000 to go!
Comments
11 Responses to "Don’t coronate Obama just yet"
Looks like the media-groupies meme may be a little off:
More coverage may not be a good thing.
Perhaps. But you also failed to include this little morsel from the article:
So, last week’s monumental love-fest, which included “tingles” running up and down Chris Matthew’s leg, was not in the data.
Additionally, McCain’s trip to Latin America, barely registered a whimper from the network anchors…which included a briefing on the monumental story of Ingrid Betancourt and other hostages being released from captivity by left-wing terrorists.
Just a note – unless i missed something, Matthews “tingles” were back in Feb, before the period of this study. However, Obama’s trip certainly did get a LOT of coverage, and though i don’t really get my news from the networks, what i heard about did seem to be predominantly positive.
That “study” also counts “Obama didn’t support the surge” as “negative”
Since when does repeating Obama’s stump speech count as “tough treatment” by the media?
And how about this little snippet you didn’t post from the same study:
“From the New Hampshire primary on January 8 until Hillary Clinton dropped out on June 7, Obama’s coverage was 62% positive (v. 38% negative) on the broadcast networks; by contrast, McCain’s coverage during this period was only 34% positive (v. 66% negative).”
Regardless, both McCain and Obama have been media darlings (McCain longer for obvious reasons). Thus, any idea that there is any significant bias in one direction more than the other runs counter to the facts.
Quick story, I had a party Saturday night which had in attendance a few Bush political appointees and a few folks working for the Obama campaign/ organizations supporting Obama. It was amusing that in conversations with each I heard how the media was biased against their candidate of choice. Which probably means that the media is generally doing a good job.
Ragnar, I don’t buy into your assessment that the media is doing a good job. In politics it is a game of expectations. W. and other Republicans have been accused of downplaying expectations so when the expectation is exceeded it is seen as a positive accomplishment.
With Obama it is different. He and his people have the expectation that everyone should love Obama. On “Meet the Press” Obama played down Brooks’ criticism of him saying Brooks is a conservative who supports McCain.
It’s interesting that he does not talk about the political leanings of the other 90% of journalist who support him.
If one person in the media says something mildly negative against the guy, the whole media is against him.
Bush can be referred to as W., Jr. (which isn’t even true), and a whole host of names, but if anyone mentions Obama’s middle name (which is my least worrisome thing about the Big O) and it’s a national disaster.
A Republican speaks at Bob Jones, and the media has a conniption fit. For Obama it takes 20 years of church attendance under a racist pastor to raise the same amount of ire.
When you are used to the liberal media singing your praises, any criticism is unwelcomed.
I tend to think this time the media singing his praise and coronating him backfired, causing the slight dip cos the media overdid it this time. Don’t worry, journalist are smart. They have learned their lesson, and they will break out the kid gloves, and rough Obama up a little to get his numbers back up.
Ragnar…McCain WAS the media darling.
Those Republicans who were fooled during the primary that McCain might actually get a “fair treatment” by the media this election now have to face the consequences that they were very much mistaken.
JR – you are ignoring the only scientific study on this issue in order to reach your subjective conclusion.
Honestly, I have exactly the opposite impression. I feel that McCain regularly gets a pass from the media, be it his repeated boneheaded statements about Al Qaeda, or the war in Iraq, or the economy, or gas prices, no one seems to be interested in holding McCain accountable – or asking the tough question. If there is a bias here, it’s in FAVOR of McCain.
Of course, his incessent whinning about the media is playing with the GOP faithful who love to cry about the media themselves.
Ragnar,
Oh, really.
So, Obama never said there were 57 states? Israel will always be a friend of Israel? Doesn’t get a free pass about sitting in a church pew for twenty years and NEVER hearing anything racist or derogatory? And, of course, his own misguided course of action of openly disagreeing with commanders and patently dismissing their on-scene observations, not to mention his stance against off-shore drilling and the storage of spent nuclear fuel. Oh, and let’s not forget an economic policy that is right out of the Communist Manifesto.
Shall I go on?
Please. Incessant whining my left…
J.R., I’ve only caught it a couple of times, but Glenn Beck has an amusing, daily segment where he compares the Obama headlines of the day to the McCain headlines. While it is not a scientific study, it is amusing. Surprise, surprise Obama wins the headline war every day.
I like how Ragnar deftly brushes off Brian’s snippets from the study as being meaningless, but he holds fast to the parts of the study he likes. Kinda reminds of me of someone else. Must be in the playbook.
Ragnar, McCain is a media darling when he opposes his party. When he opposes the other party, he instantly loses his star status.
Subjective, subjective, subjective.
Leave your response