Only Time Will Tell
On Wednesday, October 15th, 2008, a handful of Hamline students, myself included, gathered on a Metro Transit bus. Our goal was to join other college intellectuals in watching the ultimate and final presidential debate. We all anticipated a large number of politically riled up observers, perhaps with picket signs and posters in hand. Upon arrival at our intended designation, Willey Hall, at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus, what we found were not hoards of U students, but a mere dozen of debaters waiting for the show to start. Regardless of the minimal outcome, all of us were on the edge of our seats, eager to hear what candidates Barack Obama and John McCain had to say. I was awaiting answers from both parties that contained more substance and conviction than seen in the first two debates. The initial presidential debates were relatively uneventful and to some degree—disappointing. It seems that every night, dozens of expensive political ads are aired nationwide poking fun at, and attacking each candidate. When it was finally game time, I wanted to see these two gentlemen play to their full political potential-- face-to-face, unedited, and uncut.
I had three primary expectations going into this last debate in which I hoped both parties would meet. I really wanted both candidates to touch base on important topics other than the economy. There are so many divisive issues in America today that cannot go without attention: immigration, education, social security, global warming, and healthcare. Secondly, when discussing such issues, I hoped Obama and McCain would talk a bit more realistically, and less robotic and scripted. In the last two debates, both frequently abused key terms and sentences previously used in their campaigns: fundamental, change, economic crisis, etc. How can a candidate relate to the American people when they sound like they’re reading off of a teleprompter? Lastly, I wanted both parties to provide adequate and descriptive solutions to the problems and questions raised. Much to my surprise, the candidates somewhat met my expectations, but they still jumped around and jumbled a couple of questions. Conclusively, I think it was by the far their strongest debate.
For the past few weeks, Obama and McCain have been understandably wrapped up in reforming one single issue, the economy. It was refreshing to see moderator Bob Schieffer throw ten diverse and concise questions at both senators. Some of the issues talked about included the character of the campaigns, the economy, healthcare, abortion, taxes, and education. One of the most pressing and controversial social issues in the United States, abortion, was brought up by Mr. Schieffer in the form of a question aimed at discussing the Roe v Wade decision. He asked if the candidates could nominate a Supreme Court Justice who differs on their views. McCain seemed a little bit wary about answering the question raised, possibly because he has consistently followed party lines on abortion in the past. He repeated that he does not “do litmus tests,” but would make his choice with “strict adherence to the constitution, based on qualifications versus ideology.” Unlike McCain, Obama got straight to the point about his views stating, “Women are in the best position to make the decision.” He firmly believes that Roe v Wade was “rightly decided.” Even though both candidates insist that they would not “do litmus tests,” in regard to choosing a Supreme Court Justice, it is easier said than done. A president wants to ensure that most, if not all, appointees will ultimately favor rulings that somewhat match their ideologies and political views. I find it highly unlikely that those two factors would be completely unacknowledged when deciding. The candidates were rather civil when talking about abortion, but they were some heated moments when President Bush and negatives attack ads were brought up.
Unlike the last two debates, the candidates produced a hefty volume of attacks intended to throw the other one off. When addressing negative campaign advertising, both candidates agreed that the opposing party has been guilty of producing this type of propaganda. Obama even made an erratic statement that one hundred percent of John McCain’s advertisements have consisted of negative attacks. McCain maintained his defensive demeanor throughout the whole debate, especially when questioned about his past positions on budgets and taxes. At one point, McCain displayed his turbulent side when Obama accused him for voting in favor of 4 out of 5 of Bush’s budgets. “Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against him you should have four years ago.” Overall, Obama appeared to be more poignant, calm, and elaborate when it came to answering questions, in the midst of his opponent’s accusatory remarks. McCain seemed to get quite perturbed, a bit combative, and visibly upset. This was McCain’s opportunity to turn his campaign around as he trails behind Obama in the polls. I do think he that he appealed to his loyal followers; I suspect he did not prove himself or relay his message to the undecided American voter, in the time he was allotted.
Post-debate commentaries were everywhere in the media. An article written by New York Times author Jim Rutenberg, “Candidates Clash over Character and Policy,” focuses on Obama and McCain’s demeanor and overall performance. I found that what I perceived was pretty spot-on with what Rutenburg observed and writes in his article. He makes an accurate statement when pointing out the fact that this debate was “by far the most spirited and combative of their encounters this fall.” Rutenberg notes that their demeanors were incredibly opposite, much like what we have seen in the past. “Mr. Obama maintained a placid and at times bemused demeanor,” While McCain was “at times showing anger and at others a methodical determination to make all his points.” Self-presentation and the art of impromptu speaking seemed to be the greatest factors in determining the winner of the final debate.
Rutenburg also addresses the greatest distraction that took place during the debate. The mention of Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber from Ohio who Obama said had approached him at a rally, asking him about his plan to tax small businesses. The mention of Joe approximately two dozen times proved to be overkill. “The plumber came up directly or indirectly 24 times during the debate, an Everyman symbol of the divide between candidates on how best to address the economy.” Rutenburg found that Obama and McCain were least elaborate in the area of economics. He explains that when moderator Schieffer asked what would have to be postponed or cut from their initial financial plans since the collapse of the U.S. Stock Market, “neither man went very far, though Mr. McCain perhaps offered a more detailed list. Repeating his pledge of an across-the-board spending cut.” Rutenburg insinuates that the debate, which touched on a “wide variety of issues,” seemed to end in Obama’s favor.
Post-debate polls and the volume of roars produced at the U of M suggest that Obama won the final debate. I believe he won for a couple of different reasons. He seemed to manage his differences on the issues with more composure than McCain. He also spoke to his middle-class constituents with more promise and unwavering conviction. This debate was undeniably McCain’s best, but the real question is, did he gain enough attention and trust to decrease the margins and pull ahead near Obama? I don’t believe so, but the only accurate measure we have is the result of November’s general election.
Rutenburg, Jim. "Candidates Clash Over Character and Policy." The New York Times. 16 Oct 2008: A1.
"The Third Presidential Debate." Election Guide 2008. 15 Oct 2008. The New York Times. 27 Oct 2008 .
A Surge on One Channel, a Tight Race on Another
November 2, 2008
WASHINGTON — It was a lousy day to be Senator John McCain, Keith Olbermann informed his viewers on MSNBC on Thursday.
Senator Barack Obama’s surge in the polls was so strong he was competitive in Mr. McCain’s home state, Arizona. The everyman hero of Mr. McCain’s campaign, “Joe the Plumber,” failed to make an expected appearance at a morning rally in Defiance, Ohio, and the senator’s efforts to highlight Mr. Obama’s association with a professor tied to the P.L.O. were amounting to nothing.
Wait a minute ... not so fast. Click.
Things were looking up for Mr. McCain, Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren told their viewers on Fox News Channel on Thursday. He got a boost at an afternoon rally in Sandusky, Ohio, from none other than Joe the Plumber, who announced his intention to vote for “a real American, John McCain”; he was gaining new ground in ever-tightening polls, despite the overwhelming bias against him in the mainstream news media; and Mr. Obama’s association with a professor sympathetic to the P.L.O. was now at “the center of the election.”
On any given night, there are two distinctly, even extremely, different views of the presidential campaign offered on two of the three big cable news networks, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, a dual reality that is reflected on the Internet as well.
On one, polls that are “tightening” are emphasized over those that are not, and the rest of the news media is portrayed as papering over questions about Mr. Obama’s past associations with people who have purportedly anti-American tendencies that he has not answered. (“I feel like we are talking to the Germans after Hitler comes to power, saying, ‘Oh, well, I didn’t know,’ ” Ann Coulter, the conservative commentator, told Mr. Hannity on Thursday.)
On the other, polls that show tightening are largely ignored, and the race is cast as one between an angry and erratic Mr. McCain, whose desperate, misleading campaign has as low as a 4 percent chance of beating a cool, confident and deserving Democratic nominee in Mr. Obama. (“He’s been a good father, a good citizen, he’s paid attention to his country,” Chris Matthews, the MSNBC host, said Wednesday night in addressing those who might be leaning against Mr. Obama based on race. “Give the guy a break and think about voting for him.”)
And, perhaps unsurprisingly, each campaign is often at war against its television antagonist, just as the networks are at war with each other.
It is a political division of news that harks back to the way American journalism was through the first half of the 20th century, when newspapers had more open political affiliations. But it has never been so apparent in such a clear-cut way on television, a result of market forces and partisan sensibilities that are further chipping away at the post-Watergate pre-eminence of a more dispassionate approach.
The more objective approach came as the corporate owners of the networks pushed for higher profits and the newspaper industry consolidated and sought broader audiences. “To sell as many copies as you could to as many people as you could, you became what we considered objective,” said Richard Wald, a professor of media and society at Columbia University School of Journalism and a former senior vice president at ABC News.
Fox News Channel was founded 12 years ago with an argument that the mainstream news media were biased toward liberals and that nonliberals were starved for a “Fair and Balanced” television antidote by day and openly conservative-leaning opinion by night. But it was only in the last couple of years that MSNBC, long struggling for an identity and lagging, established itself as a liberal alternative to Fox News Channel in prime time, finding improved ratings in the mistrust of the mainstream media that had grown among on the left during the Bush years and the Iraq war.
The presidential campaign, and the partisan and ideological intensity surrounding it, has been the perfect subject for both sides, providing endless fodder to play to the persuasions of their audience and mock the views expressed on the rival network.
The result is a return to a “great tradition of American journalism,” Mr. Wald said. “Basically you chose your news outlet if it made you happy, if it reinforced all your views.”
Indeed, voters who primarily get their news from Web sites like The Huffington Post by day and MSNBC by night, and those who primarily get theirs from The Drudge Report by day and Fox News Channel by night would have entirely different views of the candidates and the news driving the campaign year. (At second place in the ratings, behind Fox News Channel, CNN is maintaining a far more traditional approach to news this year.)
When Politico.com reported on Oct. 21 that the Republican National Committee had spent $150,000 on clothing for Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, Mr. Olbermann interrupted his 8 p.m. program on MSNBC to promote the story and discuss it, as did Rachel Maddow, whose program follows.
Fox News Channel reported it first the next morning, on “Fox & Friends,” in a segment in which the report was described as sexist and unfair, and Bill O’Reilly and Ms. Van Susteren later criticized the news media on their programs for giving it as much attention as they had.
“It was ridiculous,” said Mr. O’Reilly, singling out The New York Times in particular for covering the purchase.
That was a role reversal from spring 2007, when news broke that former Senator John Edwards had paid $400 for a haircut out of his Democratic presidential campaign account.
Mr. Olbermann named Mr. Hannity the “Worst Person in the World,” a running feature on his program, for making fun of Mr. Edwards’s haircut and showing video of him styling his hair before an interview.
Mr. O’Reilly had said of Mr. Edwards at the time: “He runs around telling Americans the system is rigged, while paying $400 for a haircut. This guy is a one-man sitcom.”
Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism at the Pew Research Center, said, “To some extent, they are reverse images of each other.”
The group has studied the tone and content of the election-year coverage and found that Mr. McCain has been the subject of more negative reports in general than has Mr. Obama on issues that include assessments of their performances in polls, the debates and running their campaigns.
But within that universe, the study found, the share of positive reports on Mr. McCain at Fox News was above the average of the news media at large, and the share of negative reports about Mr. Obama was higher, too. (The study found that the mix of positive and negative was roughly equal for them on Fox.)
And the study found that MSNBC featured a higher percentage of negative reports about Mr. McCain than the rest of the news media and a higher share of positive reports about Mr. Obama. CNN was more generally in line with the average.
Mr. Rosenstiel said Fox News Channel and MSNBC showed ideological differences, “obviously more so at night.” And executives at those networks said that opinion was kept to their prime-time lineups and away from their news reporting.
Officials at the Obama and McCain campaigns said in interviews last week that they believed they were treated fairly by the reporters assigned to them at the two networks, including Major Garrett and Carl Cameron at Fox News Channel and Kelly O’Donnell and Lee Cowan at NBC News. (NBC pools some political newsgathering efforts with The New York Times.) And advisers to both campaigns show up for interviews on both networks.
Mr. Obama’s campaign aides said they were pleased when Shepard Smith, the Fox News Channel anchor, this week dressed down Joe the Plumber, a k a Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, for agreeing with a voter who called a vote for Mr. Obama “a vote for the death of Israel.”
Reporting that Mr. Obama supported Israel, Mr. Smith added with exasperation, “It just gets frightening sometimes.”
And Ms. Maddow has expressed skepticism about Mr. Obama’s call for more troops in Afghanistan.
But officials at both campaigns also said there had been plenty of instances when they have perceived bias in regular news coverage. On Fox News Channel, for instance, Gregg Jarrett, referring to Mr. Obama, asked a guest, “Do economists say that in fact his policies could drive a recession into a depression?” (The guest, Donald Lambro of The Washington Times, responded, “Well, I haven’t read that, no.”)
Raising a report about Obama campaign suspicions that Mr. McCain got an unfair peek at questions to be asked of him at a joint forum at the Saddleback Church, Mr. McCain’s campaign wrote to NBC News in August, “We are concerned that your news division is following MSNBC’s lead in abandoning nonpartisan coverage of the presidential race.”
And sometimes the approaches have been noticeable simply through what the networks cover. After NPR reported late last week that a McCain supporter, former Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger, questioned whether Ms. Palin was “prepared to take the reins of the presidency,” MSNBC repeated it roughly 20 times over the course of the day, CNN mentioned it four times, a review of programming on the monitoring service ShadowTV found. And Fox News Channel did one segment, in which it interviewed Mr. Eagleburger, who apologized and said Ms. Palin was “a quick study.”
Fox News Channel executives would not comment for this article. Phil Griffin, president of MSNBC, agreed that at night his network gave a decidedly opinionated viewpoint.
“All of our material is based on fact — our guys work really hard on it, and the point-of-view shows make their conclusions,” Mr. Griffin said. “In this modern era, you’ve got a variety of places that look at the day’s events. Some you respect more than others, others you recognize as having a point of view, some you see as factual in a different way, and it all blends together into how you make your decision for what’s going on.
“The burden is a little more on the individual.”
This article originally appeared on the website of the New York Times.
