Matt notices something that struck me last night:
It's interesting how much more interested the press seems to be in the Democratic race than in the GOP one. When after Iowa there was tons of attention showered on Barack Obama and nothing on Huckabee, I figured that was just part of the vast pro-McCain conspiracy. But after the media got the McCain victory it was hoping for, there's still more talk about the Democratic result.The thing of it is that the Republican race is really much more interesting. It's a bigger field of semi-viable contenders and it's very unpredictable. What's more, there appears to be much more separating the Republican nominees from each other in terms of policy and approach -- Mike Huckabee is really, really different from Rudy Giuliani. My feeling has kind of been that I, personally, tend to focus on the Democratic field perhaps a bit more than it deserves because I'm a liberal and I've got a mostly liberal audience, but actually it seems that everyone is playing it my way and I'm not really sure why.
I don't want to go out on a limb here or anything, but I think it might just have something to do with the fact that 99% of the reporters covering the election are planning to vote Democratic. Just a thought.
That didn't strike you until last night?
The press also seems to regard the idea of a Republican victory in November as too ridiculous to even discuss. Could be an interesting year.
You do understand that the Republicans have done an absolutely horrible job governing. You get that, right? I can guarantee that many in the press voted for GWB in 2000, and perhaps 2004 too. They were wrong and they now know it.
Megan, stop exaggerating. It is more like 90%.
J
It is not just the press that thinks that the Democratic primary will decide who the next president is, many Republicans agree. It is not a bad way to bet, unless the Democrats nominate Kerry v2.0 (better known as Sen Clinton) she is the only hope the GOP has for a victory in the fall.
I agree that the CW on the election is that the Democratic nominee will win easily. And I agree that after the way Bush and the Republican congress have governed that would be justified. But I would also note that none of the real Republican front runners (McCain, Romney, Giuliani - Huckabee is a bad joke) can realistically be tied to Bush/Delay, et al. And moreover, McCain in particular polls very well nationally against even Obama. The actual election may be far closer than the press expects (hopes).
Also - there can're really be any doubt that 90% + of mainstream reporters are Democrats. They may not be Moveon.org/Democratic underground type lunatics, but they will not vote Republican in November.
I'm not quite buying the conspiracy. Let's not forget that this is at least as much entertainment as journalism, and the Democratic race is just better television. It has star power, better performances, and a great villain. Huckabee's good for a quip, but there's no one on the Republican side who's engaging for more than 30 seconds at a time.
Look at it this way: if you were casting these parts for a Sorkinesque dramedy about an election, would you cast any of the Republicans? Except for maybe Huckabee as a comic sidekick, nobody over there has any juice. Obama, Clinton, Edwards--you would cast them, wouldn't you? In effect, that's what the networks are doing.
Television journalism is more television than journalism. Never forget that.
What Larry Geater said.
The Dems are going to win in November.
The only chance they'll lose is McCain beating Clinton.
How exactly would this explain the press's love affair with the compassionate conservative George W. Bush and the straight-talking John McCain in 2000?
I have an alternative alternative theory. Matthew is wrong. The press isn't paying less attention to the Republicans.
Kay and Larry, you seem to infer that I think the Republican candidate will win. What I think is that it's not possible to know or accurately predict what will happen 10 months down the road. Larry's statement is correct, but assumes an unrealistic stasis, and changes could break either way. At this point in the 1992 campaign, there was a similar attitude amongst both parties about the inevitability of W senior's re-election. Kay - I appreciate your idealism, but read the first sentence of your post with the word "Republicans" replaced with a blank, then get back to us with your estimate of the percentage of voters who consider that in their decision.
The other factor that hasn't been mentioned is that the Democratic race has a better chance of being decided by these early primaries and caucuses, whereas the GOP race won't come into focus until February 5, at the earliest. If Clinton or Obama can put together 3 or 4 wins in a row, it's over. The stakes are just much, much higher on the Democratic side right now.
Woah Nelly, you're on a roll lately McMegan. Out come the MSM conspirations!
I guess I'll have to go find another conservative blog to read as this one is quickly getting a strikethrough on the "not-totally-insane" modifier.
What's the media conspiracy? They're not altering the election--someone is going to be the Republican nominee, after all. They're just more interested in who wins the Democratic nomination, because that's who they have to vote for come fall. That strikes me as well below the level of conspiracy.
How exactly would this explain the press's love affair with the compassionate conservative George W. Bush and the straight-talking John McCain in 2000?
Because both of those guys were talking themselves up as anti-Republican Republicans and not-really-that-conservative conservatives, and the liberal press loves to see R's criticize other R's.
The storylines are far more simple on the Democratic side in that it now seems to come down to Obama and Hillary. That is far simpler to write about than the far more complex race on the Republican side.
It would also seem that, in the early states, at least, the public is more interested in the Democratic primary just based on voter turnout. In NH, close to 20% more people voted in the Dem primary.
In 2000, the news coverage went the other way. The interesting story was McCain challenging the presumed candidate Bush.
I am not saying most media members will vote D, but there are many other compelling reasons why the Democratic primary is getting more coverage.
Uh, I don't know who you are planning on voting for, but haven't you, Megan McArdle, devoted much more attention to the democratic campaign than the GOP?
According to google there are about twice as many references to the top 3 democratic candidates as the top 3 republican ones on this site.
In fact, even in the past few days haven't you posted several times about Hillary Clinton and I believe this is the first post where you even mentioned McCain?
Rehashing the tired old "journalists are liburals so anytimes anything goods for liburals they say it's cause they is liburals too" seems kind of, well, not trenchant to me.
And I thought you soft science people were supposed to recognize hyperbole?
But this is neither good for liberals nor bad for liberals; it's just important to liberals.
I am an American working for the foreign press in Washington. No-one in our bureau but me is able to vote here at all, and the foreign reporters are only on four-year stints here and are unlikely to be particularly attached to one American political party or another.
But our target audience overseas cares overwhelmingly more about the Democratic primary than the Republican primary. Why? Because the assumption, both in our office and with our readers, is that the Democratic nominee is probably going to win.
I don't want to go out on a limb here or anything, but I think it might just have something to do with the fact that 99% of the reporters covering the election are planning to vote Democratic.
Maybe it's just because I'll most likely vote Dem, but am still more fascinated by the Republican race that this explanation doesn't work for me. So, let me offer a different hypothesis:
The Democratic race is far more "conventional" -- it's a 2 or 3 person race, with a perceived leader and underdogs. In terms of narrative, it's about as easy as it gets: will Candidate X (first Obama, then Clinton) come from behind to take the lead, which signals momentum and is proposed to be something of a proxy for national sentiment.
The Republican race is far more fractured, and harder to weave into narrative. What does a repeated second mean to Romney if different people are first? The chance any candidate has seems not to hinge on one election or another, so much as the outcome of several elections, regionally divided. The fact that Giuliani can finish 6th(!) and still be considered even remotely credible is a testament to how different this is than the more traditional election horserace.
It's not liberalism. It's laziness/incompetence in the face of a trickier dynamic. The very thing that makes me (and perhaps MattY) find this more fascinating is the thing that makes it harder as a topic of news coverage.
I think it has more to do with the consumer than the media. There is so much data available that people have learned to ignore those things that are less relevant to themselves (either actively or subconsciously). A person who's planning on voting Democratic has a higher opportunity cost for paying attention to the Republican race and vice versa.
I would say the coverage is there in ample quantity for both races. Whether you choose to pay more attention to one or the other is up to you.
Don't agree. First, I think that a lot of reporters would see voting as uncool---they seem to have the mentality of high schoolers in most ways. Those that do vote will do so simply to vote against the candidate they hate the most (Hillary) or like the most (McCain).
The fact that the Republican race isn't predictable scares, not excites, the media. They don't know how to cover it. They want a narrative, dammit, and the Republican race is giving them a wild free-for-all with no clear story.
"But this is neither good for liberals nor bad for liberals; it's just important to liberals."
Really, Megan? REALLY?! This is your response?
Your point still rests on liberal bias in media greatly influencing reporting. The notion that this is true would mean that never ever ever was there adequate coverage of a republican primary. Do you honestly believe that this is the case?
Also, important and good are somewhat synonymous. Most important things are good, and many good things are important. While this is besides the point, it's interesting to note that your counter argument to a point I'm not making does not adequately refute this non-existent argument.
For crap's sake. Learn to think before you decide. It leads to a lot more coherence than the other way around.
Indeed, Occam's Razor would suggest that the solution must be the Liberal Media Conspiracy (TM). Because, you know, reporters are the ones that determine what they are going to report on. It couldn't have anything to do with the media appeal of one contest over the other. And there's no possibility that many think the GOP is more or less down shit creek this season unless the democrats really screw it up making the democratic contest more relevant than the other? It couldn't be any of the other more simple explanations, it's gotta the Liberal Media Conspiracy (TM) -- the simplest answer.
John Harrold wrote: it's gotta the Liberal Media Conspiracy (TM) -- the simplest answer.
Relax, the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy (R) will keep it in check. Spy vs. Spy style, no doubt.
So the "evidence" for the conspiracy is the penchant for the journalists to be left leaning. Ignored is of course the penchant for editors to be right leaning. Can you imagine what it's like?
1) Liberal submits an article with only words like "awesome" in front of democrats and "poopie" in front of republicans.
2) Conservative reads article, crosses out all the
"awesome"'s and "poopies"'s and replaces them with their counter parts. Sends it back to liberal
3) repeat.
Oh man, that must be fun times in the offices. I bet the final spin of the article is determined by what stage they're at when Peter Parker rushes in with his latest photos of Spiderman and everyone gets distracted.
re: anon
I'm guising VRWC is White Spy, no doubt?
I think Megan isn't quite right here. The issue isn't reportorial bias, it's reportorial laziness.
The Democrat primary race is between a white woman, a black man, a white Southerner, and (less so) a Hispanic man. There aren't any substantive differences in what each of the major candidates says (s)he'll do, so reporters get to concentrate on the horse-race, and look at the personality conflicts and the junior-high "who likes who".
Meanwhile, the Republican race is between eight six three fourfive middle-aged white men, who actually have substantively different proposals for the future direction of the country. Reporting on that requires actually understanding not just politics, but conservative arguments for various policies. That's hard, in an almost "math is hard" way.
So instead, the reporters cover McCain by focusing on his differences with Bush (who isn't running), Giuliani's 9/11 performance, and maybe his crooked associates, Romney's "Boy Scout on steroids" image, and Huckabee as one of those weird tribes inhabiting the flyover country whom nobody understands.
You don't want to go out on a limb, you just want to pull facts out of your ass.
If you can provide any documentation that 99 percent of reporters covering the race are planning to vote as Democrats, please do so.
Please note: Citing a survey that 70 percent of White House reporters in the 80s voted for a Dem or that 78 percent of English profs who responded to a survey are registered Dems doesn't count. You made a specific allegation -- support it or admit you're a fraud. Fallows doesn't try to pull this kind of b.s., and neither should you.
HAHAHAAHAH! I love the internet!
Hey Facts, I claim to have a penis the size of Rhode Island. Are you gonna come over and make me verify that?
silly question:
how do you know for a fact what 99% of the presss is gonna do?
you dont.
sounds like you're just recycling bogus republican talking points now...
I don't want to go out on a limb here or anything, but I think it might just have something to do with the fact that 99% of the reporters covering the election are planning to vote Democratic. Just a thought.
Yes it is "just a thought". I prefer reading facts and supported opinions to made up "thoughts". I'm reading your blog for the first time. I see there is no need to come back again.
the Republican race is between eight six three fourfive middle-aged white men, who actually have substantively different proposals for the future direction of the country.
"I plan to attack the Muslims - with nuclear weapons!"
"We should retreat into a cave and spend our days counting our shiny gold bars."
"We must stop the liberals before they force us to pass universal health insurance, like I did in a moment of sin while accidentally serving as Governor of Massachussetts!"
"I am an actor - a character actor. Who are you to tell me I can't play the role of [looks at script] President of the United States?"
Substantively different, yet somehow stylistically similar.