For those that troll the newspapers nowadays, one things is blatantly missing: Where are all the news reports about Republican presidential candidates?
Despite the "hype" over McCain, Giuliani and Romney, the news these days is overwhelmingly about Democratic candidates and their positions, locations, speeches, etc. A big switch from November of 2006 when the news was about George Allen, Mark Foley, Hastert, and others - the news today is a pro and con match of the Democrats, complete with anger and love, resentment and appreciation.
The Washington page of the New York Times overwhelmingly references Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, with 5 articles referring to one of the three and zero articles about the Republican presidential nominees. MSNBC's politics page has similar numbers, with 13 articles designated to Democratic candidates while just 5 articles about Republican candidates.
This type of reporting is not limited to "liberal news." On the ultra conservative website "Right Wing News" (www.rightwingnews.com) Hillary Clinton is mentioned 8 times, Barack Obama was mentioned 6, and John Edwards was mentioned a whopping 21 times. On the Republican side (excluded is a posted conversation about the Republican nominees, which I count as 1 for each candidate since they repeat names not for article emphasis but rather to differentiate who they are complaining about in the conversation) Rudy Giuliani is mentioned only 2 times, McCain mentioned 4, and Mitt Romney mentioned just 3 times. All but 1 of those counted for each candidate was the result of a recent poll rather than an article about the candidate. Only 2 articles were about Republican candidates while near 10 were about the Democrats. The results were similar with Townhall.com's ratio of 6:1, Outside the Beltway 3:0. Michelle Malkin got the closest to even with 5:3, but 2 of her 3 articles were about the CPAC conference that she was blogging from. Even the Fox News front page was 3 to 1.
So what is the reason for the excessive focus on Democratic candidates? Is it the star line-up that the Democrats have to offer? The two stars for the Republican party, McCain and Giuliani, are losing their popularity with each passing day – McCain for referring to solder’s deaths as “wasted” and Giuliani for being a MAYOR WHO HAS DONE NOTHING EVER… excuse me, for being a too liberal for the conservative party.
Most likely it is the opposite. Rather than it being the star power of the Democrats it is the indifference towards the Republicans that keeps them out of the news. Liberals and Democrats simple don’t care, while Republicans and Conservatives are using their time to blast the popular Democratic candidates rather than boost the image of their own kind. Whatever the reason, without a good Republican candidate, Clinton and Obama are going to be used so often, they may as well be referred to as “Clobama” similar to Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s popular nickname of “Bennifer.”
Although, personally, I’d like to refer to John McCain and Rudy Giuliani as “McLiani.” I could see that as being something that catches on. Maybe Mitt Romney and McCain can be "Romain" - like the lettuce (sans -e)? Or "Romniani?" "MittCain?" "Cainianey?"
Their names are incredibly lame.
1 comment:
I don't think the money people in the GOP have settled on a candidate yet. When they do, we will hear plenty about that candidate in the corporate media.
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