2008 Election
nisbetmc | January 4, 2008
Did you know that while an Illinois Senator that Barack Obama successfully passed major bills on crime, ethics, campaign finance reform, and low wage work? And that these accomplishments reveal his experience and ability in working across party lines to craft solutions to complex problems?
The reason you don't know these things things is in part a function of the horse race coverage that has dominated this presidential race at a historically unprecedented level.
Charles Peters, the founding editor of the Washington Monthly, makes this exact point in an op-ed published at the Washington…
nisbetmc | January 4, 2008At the History News Network, my American University colleague Lenny Steinhorn teams up with his brother Charles, a professor of Mathematics at Vassar College, to point out the misleading nature of the framing of evolution in presidential coverage. As they argue, political reporters overwhelmingly tend to describe evolution as a "belief" akin to believing in Virgin birth or miracles.
Lenny Steinhorn, author of The Greater Generation, a defense of Baby Boomers, is one of the most sought out strategists in Washington. [Of interest to readers, his work and teaching was recently profiled in the…
nisbetmc | January 3, 2008
Ten months ago the patterns of attacks among some of the leading personalities at Fox News were already emerging.
With Barack Obama's win tonight in Iowa, expect the character attacks, innuendo, race codes, and islamo-phobia to pick up among various Fox News personalities. More than 10 months ago, filmmaker Robert Greenwald released a brilliant video montage of the emerging attacks on programs such as Hannity & Colmes and Fox & Friends. Watch the footage above.
In coming months, expect the following themes to be emphasized:
*Allegations that the only reason Obama could move from the…
nisbetmc | January 3, 2008Mike Huckabee plays guitar and jokes about his weight on The Tonight Show.
Last night on Jay Leno, Mike Huckabee put in the best late night performance in presidential history, potentially catapulting himself to a win in Iowa tonight and gaining enough momentum to march on to victory in South Carolina. As I explained when Fred Thompson launched his campaign on late night television, these types of appearances are a powerful new strategic tool in campaigns.
On late night shows, candidates are usually able to offer their best personal narrative, and hopefully in the process, prime memories of…
nisbetmc | December 31, 2007At Time magazine, a focus on who will break out of the pack?!
As the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary approaches, it's all horse race all the time in the news media with an almost exclusive focus on "insider" coverage of campaign strategy and a fascination with who's ahead and who's behind in the polls. Lost in the media spectacle is any careful coverage of issues and policy proposals, or serious discussion of candidate background. In fact, it seems there's never been a time in 2007 where issues have taken primacy over the sports game of political coverage.
Consider that an analysis by…
nisbetmc | November 20, 2007
At the Columbia Journalism Review, managing editor Brent Cunningham argues for a new journalistic beat that covers the obscuring uses of language and messaging in politics. The essay is part of a special issue devoted to "Orwell in '08."
The benefits of a "rhetoric and framing" beat would be obvious and sorely needed, as he asks:
What if on 9/11 our major media outlets had employed reporters whose sole job it was to cover the rhetoric of politics--to parse the language of our elected leaders, challenge it, and explain the thinking behind it, the potential power it can have to legitimize…
nisbetmc | November 13, 2007
Pundits and journalists continue to speculate about whether or not conservative Republicans will get strongly behind a Rudy Giuliani presidential run. As it stands right now, according to a recent Gallup survey, for the great majority of Republicans, the heuristics of likability, party loyalty, and Rudy's national security message appear to trump the Mayor's stands on abortion and gay rights. Yet for a strongly committed conservative minority, these issues do raise objections.
In the Oct. 12-14 poll, 61% of Republicans say Giuliani's views on abortion and gay rights either make no difference…