So I’m reading The Washington Post this morning and channel surfing between ESPN, MSNBC, and CNN and as a result (not because of ESPN, of course) I’m made to believe that the presidential election is already over and Barack Obama will be our president come January.
Now I’m not saying this mainstream media presaging is a good thing or a bad thing … I’m just saying it’s a thing. And I’m asking you, wise DT readers, as your Sunday Paper tasker, to tell us what you think about it. Is the MSM creating a self-fufilling prophecy? Or will the electorate rise up and show the experts they’re not as smart as they thought?
And remember, this is the Sunday Paper. We go outside the lines of things didactically defense tech-y with these (infrequent) posts. Plus we’re electing the next commander-in-chief. Hello? Talk about defense-related …
So what do you think?
– Ward
{ 50 comments… read them below or add one }
“Is the MSM creating a self-fufilling prophecy? Or will the electorate rise up and show the experts they’re not as smart as they thought?”
Then of course there’s the third option– that people actually do want to elect Barack Obama, and the MSM is merely reporting on that fact. It’s also the most rational explanation, unless you have any specific issues with how polling is conducted.
The political science literature on the effect of the media and even campaigns is mostly pessimistic about their effects on voting behavior come election day. Group membership such as party affiliation or “coal minor” plus retrospective assessments of things like the economy over the last election cycle predict most of the behavior. I wouldn’t worry about the “elite liberal media” being able to swing this one way or the other even if they wanted to.
Then of course there’s the third option– that people actually do want to elect Barack Obama, and the MSM is merely reporting on that fact. It’s also the most rational explanation, unless you have any specific issues with how polling is conducted.
Posted by: Keith at October 26, 2008 10:01 AM
I do starting with the fact that sence he launched his run for president the MSM has done everything it can to get him elected.
-Proof he was with the New Party socalist organization who acorn is mearly a front man for
-proof he has more more contact with ayers than anyone one ever reports…
the list goes on and on
oh lets not forget the 900 trillion dollars he plans on making the american ppl pay as a tax to the UN.
No none of it matters as long as ppl dont have to think as long as they can get along with there lives and not have to face the idea that this is a serious decision.EVERY single democrate i know when asked to explain why there voting for him says i just dont want to talk about it….
so here s to the once great country of the United States of America….and to its fall because its ppl became sheep….once again Rome falls.
I agree with Keith that this is largely happening because the electorate wants it. Sure, MSM is having an effect, but then again they drew attention to the “celebrity” line of attacks… They’re the media. It’s what they do.
The fact of the matter is that one campaign has run a tight, well funded, largely gaffe-free, informative and clearly directed campaign while the other hasn’t. One campaign has appealed to logic while the other has appealed to suspicion and passion. One campaign has been largely respectful and the other almost cartoonishly slanderous. One campaign has appealed to some Americans and the other has reached out to all Americans.
This didn’t just happen because of the media. This didn’t just happen because of the Republican’s failures. This didn’t just happen because one amazing man was positioned at a once in a generation position. This didn’t just happen because a candidate knew how to engage America from the top and the bottom.
But all these and more factors together, are why there’s a 95% certainty that Barack Obama will be the next American president.
And I can tell you, here from the very center of Ohio, my friends, family, co-workers, allies and more are all working to erase that last 5% of question.
If John McCain doesn’t beat us to it. :D
John, if the media controls the country, then they made you right that comment.
I second Keith’s remarks.
Or “write,” sorry.
I think it may be time to get some Harvard law dogs doing some of the table talk business instead of some bible thumping war profiteers from Liberty U. Then get some pride back into National Service and increase the quality of the recruitment pools. We need to build up our soft talk just as much as rebuild our big stick. Time to run the place smarter, not 894th out of 899. The brass has got to stop giving a sloppy pilot all the breaks. Even if it cost them jobs when they retire.
The MSM are certainly trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. They really want Obama to win and have pulled out all the stops to make it happen.
Whether or not it will work is a big question. The polls show Obama in the lead but the numbers are all over the place. I believe one of the reasons for this is that people who don’t believe what the media are trying to force them to believe are avoiding participation in the polls.
That doesn’t mean Obama will lose. But if I’m right, it means this will be another very close race.
McCain can still win. It’s not over yet.
I think broadcasting (and/or watching?) news on television should be a capital offense, if you want to know what *I* think.
or…
as is normally the case with elections, if a candidate is reported as being this far in front, his electorate will not feel an imperative to support him.
IE. high poll numbers tend to reduce a candidates lead.
further, polls tend to be off by a half dozen points one to the other in addition to skewing three to four points dem (remember last year when kerry was supposedly up two points the day before the election)
this election is not out of the question for JmC.
Admirable way to remain bipartisan in a discussion that’s become heated. The media doesn’t decide elections – as someone wrote before me, they talk about what can be talked about. All media has bias – anyone who has traveled outside of the US will realize that that is just as true of the non-Fox American media as it is of Fox. However, reporting a sheaf of conservative commentators and politicians, from Colin Powell to William Weld to Smerconish and Kenneth Adelman, are backing Obama is news. It’s not showing a pro-Obama bias.
If there is a bias, I blame two people – Bush, and McCain. Bush because the media hate his guts the way most Americans do, and McCain because his motives for choosing Palin, and then his management of Palin, shielding her from the press and refusing media access when she was his star, was only bound to make the media tee off on both of them. As Whitey Herzog said, reporters have to write something – that’s their job. Give them a quote and treat them with respect – otherwise they’ll just start digging on their own.
1. Polling is much better (read: more accurate) today than in 1948 (my birth year).
2. We have early voting in many states. In those states, as much as 35% of the electorate has already voted.
3. See FiveThirtyEight.com
4. And, if having Barack Hussein Obama as POTUS has you upset, then relax and think about 2016.
Peter, Great piece you wrote there, you have my vote!
As a non US resident I find the US electorial system rather strange, especially that it’s possible to win the election without having the absolute most votes.
But that’s just my opinion…
Personally I feel that the Main stream Media’s obvious partisan behavior during this election cycle has severely damaged their credibility.
When I hear them reporting a week out from the election that Obama has already won I find myself being very sceptical. Especialy when the polls are all over the place and the McCain campaign continues to be very competitive in swing states.
Remember in 2004 the Polls had Kerry up by 8 points on election day, By mid day based on exit polls the press had pretty much declared him the winner. By the end of the night it was a completely different storey and Kerry had lost despite the best efforts of the media.
Regardless of who wins this election in my eyes the Main stream Media has ceased to be a trusted source of information for me. From now on I am going to have to take everything they say with a grain of salt and try to get different perspectives on issues from alternate and less main stream media outlets to try and balance out the Main stream Media’s slanted coverage of news events.
Sweet lord never mind go back to watching CNN and MSNBC suck down as much koolaid as you can so you wont have to face the future….course what am i saying youll just blame it on Bush…hell i give up saying anything to ppl let me know how amazing he is in 4 yrs.
Yea cause we know the bad guy never gets it if there where any justice in this world Ayers would be hanging. He is was a terrorist and should at least be in jail for arson….of course in Chicogo you do that they decide you should teach the children….I mean its worked so well such a safe place chicogo.
God seriously every country that hates us loves obama…..doesnt that set off alarm bells….?
here a example:
http://cassandra2004.blogspot.com/2008/10/what-to-expect-from-obama-regime.html
I don’t know, while IMO there is a somewhat leftist bias in the media (and I think that Peter hit the cause right on the head), I just don’t think that it really has any lasting effects… People watch and read what they want to watch and read…
One thing I do not like is when people from the left try and act like there is no bias. I just point to the handling of both VPs… Biden has put his foot in his mouth time after time after time after time and there is rarely a single word uttered about it. And compare that to Palin and you have a stark contrast there.
“Objectivity is a fallacy. In campaign reporting more than any other kind of press coverage, reporters aren
Obama and the MSM are on the same team. How could it fail?
I’m not sure but when every media outlet that isn’t talk radio or Fox touts Obama as the messiah I have a tendency to think they are in bed together. The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post might be exceptions. Most TV and newspaper outlets have been on the liberal side of things for as long as I can remember.
Valcan -
You are correct about one thing. Bill Ayers should be in jail for terrorism. Unfortunately, the US Justice Department (led by Republicans in the Nixon administration) in 1973 dropped all charges against him.
And then more recently while he was a professor at the University of Illinois, it was Republicans who were throwing parties for Ayers.
Can someone explain to me as a non US resident why it is so that you have to be really against the other party. And why does it have to be the same with the media? Is there no in the middle party/media channel?
I’m personally more in the center kind of guy, who should I vote for(If I could) and what kind of media should I watch/read?
Ok,
To get this back on track, ie. defense related, Democrats are talking about a 25% cut in defense spending. Impact of this on….?
Actually, there are a great deal of people who are either in the middle, or at least less than thrilled with the two ‘main’ candidates…
But, the Presidency is a “Winner Take All” situation, nothing like a Parliamentary system.
And, you don’t rake in donations for your campaign, or subscriptions for your paper, by hemming and hawing, and saying it doesn’t really make a difference!
The big money, sadly, is on the extremes…
John, i am glad you can interpret the meanings and contexts of words such as, “insists” for the rest of us dumbs. come on bro….
CTR1,
sources on this info?
Si vis pacem, para bellum, i.e. If you want peace, prepare for war.
And:
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum, i.e. Therefore whoever desires peace, let him prepare for war.
(Don
This is a ridiculous post. Ward, you are shooting the messenger.
If you don’t agree with the conclusions of the MSM, you can always argue about their methodology (like, how do they define “likely voter” and “undecided” and whether they weight certain groups that are under-represented in the sample).
However, it looks like you don’t fully understand that polls are not inventions and their results are not created out of thin air. They measure what’s out there. Nothing to do with some MSM conspiracy. Such suggestions only diminish your credibility.
This late in the game, with McCain’s poll numbers, it’s easy to understand why anyone who understands polling techniques will conclude that this is pretty much a done deal–ceteris paribus an appearance of Bin Laden to tilt the election towards McCain.
This isn’t a story. It’s a chum slick.
“By the way, Obama has had a federal suit placed against him in Pennsylvania concerning his citizenship.”
Yeah, that case was thrown out. Sorry. No standing, you see.
It’s a pleasant surprise to see left and right support evenly displayed on a defense news site, with people not even cussing at eachother…
“See FiveThirtyEight.com”
Posted by: Dave Barnes
What he said.
Who do we want for Commander-in-chief? An ex-fighter pilot squadron commander that led other men into combat, or a lawyer that has never led anything, not even a Boy Scout troop?
It’s a sad commentary on the state of our country that this election is even close.
MSM may at times interject bias. But the bottom line is the bottom line. They will report on what gives them ratings.
Dig into the issues? Nah. Palin’s wardrobe costs get viewers talking. How will either candidate fund all their promises and still deliver great tax cuts to you? Nope. Let’s talk about the 90k people that showed up at the latest rally.
Any bias that peeks through is designed for ratings as well. Ratings = revenue = profit.
Obama winning…..How is the defense industry in Canada? I know they have good beer, Canadian football, and awesome hunting. I’m feeling a move in my future. I just don’t know if I can handle all that cold.
If the Media gets Barak Hussein Obama elected, shortly after:
Russia invades Ukraine
China invades Taiwan
Various leftists in South America eliminate the democratic opposition and become one-party states.
Democratic movements all over the world will suffer setback after setback.
The American middle class will be eviscerated.
…and Obama will do nothing.
You have been warned.
More interesting that the old news that Obama is leading in the Presidential election is the rising tide of Obamacons — neo-conservatives who are defecting from McCain to Obama.
They are disgusted by the anti-intellectual tone that has captured the GOP and implicitly rejected them, and by the disregard for foreign policy experience indicated by the Palin pick. They also aren’t comfortable with the strongly evangelical Christian character of the GOP which leads to a less tolerant and more isolationist approach to the world than they are comfortable with, as foreign policy experts who are outside of the cultural heart of the Republican party.
The shift will change both the neo-cons, probably reinfusing the Brookings Institute and Council for Foreign Relations consensus thinking with intellectual backing, while at the same time, it will change the Democratic party, as heavy weight foreign policy intellectuals bring their come from to the party in an area where there aren’t as strong partisan divides in any case.
Most of the Obamacons have already disavowed the notion that the Iraq War had any sensible justification, and are uncomfortable with the direction the Bush Administration has taken in the War on Terror.
Also, it is worth noting that at this point, Bush, Obama, and the Iraqi government are all looking at a medium term pull out from Iraq.
It is undeniable that a disproportionate number of media members vote Democrat. With a country evenly divided (roughly 50/50) between the two parties, you would expect most professions to be similarly evenly divided. Not so with the media, who vote Democrat nearly 90% of the time. Obviously media members have a personal preference for Barack Obama. Does that carry over into their professional careers? To some extent.
It is also undeniable that Obama has run a better campaign that McCain, though to what extent is debatable. His pick of Palin is rather surprising, but otherwise not noteworthy. I can’t remember the last time a VP pick was more than a ho-hum announcement, and I think the Palin pick is getting more media attention than it otherwise would deserve. Her experience is hardly any less than a Dan Quayle or a John Edwards.
There does seem to be some left-wing bias (at least as far as this moderate republican is concerned) in the type of stories that are reported by major media outlets. Let’s cut the partisan crap and stop pretending that the reason the media is reporting all good stories on Obama and little good on McCain is because Obama is a saint and McCain is the devil. Both are honorable and admirable men and you could do a feel good story a week on one of them and not run out of material for years.
Simply looking over the headlines that appear on CNN.com and on MSNBC.com will present an image of Obama as running a dominating campaign and McCain as doomed. Is this just coincidence? Some on this thread have suggested that it is simply unbiased reporting — that Obama really is a golden boy who has done everything to perfection, and McCain is a toddering old imbecile. Or is it that both are running their campaigns okay and the media is seeing what they want to see?
Who do we want for Commander-in-chief? An ex-fighter pilot squadron commander that led other men into combat, or a lawyer that has never led anything, not even a Boy Scout troop?
I remember another choice between Presidents. One of them had graduated from West Point and had served his country honorably in a number of wars. The other’s military experience was limited to a few weeks in the local reserve.
Robert E. Lee chose the first one (Jefferson Davis). The north chose the second one (Abraham Lincoln).
(By the way, if we *are* going to elect a fighter pilot, could we elect one who hasn’t crashed or been shot down quite so often?)
A re-post from http://www.americanthinker.com, June 25, 2008, 10:36 PM:
If Barack Hussein Obama is elected the next US president, November 4, 2008, sworn in January 20, 2009, 12 PM (=12 Noon) EST, my predictions:
(1) He will severly hurt DOE/NNSA and the National labs, i.e. Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia.
(2) He will severly hurt DoD.
(3) He will not (99.99% certainty) execute a pre-emptive US strike against the nuclear weapons program in Iran. (He will leave the pre-emptive option (if president George W Bush doesn
One concern is that an Obama presidency will lower the bar of who can be President. A man with such a dubious and short history of public service, (possibly) becoming President? Who’s next..Joe the Plumber? I’m not saying only members of the so-called elite should run. Not at all. It’s just that the job of POTUS is too important for someone without an extensive record of success in the public sector.
demophilus, woot! Pwned those suckers!
Does anyone really think it makes that much difference? Whoever is the next President will have very little wriggle space on anything. It’s just a question of how hard the landing is going to be — and Boeing’s lucrative contracts are not going to be spared any more than anyone else’s.
demophilus: “A lot of the Obama coverage by the MSM is deeply critical.”
Step away from the crack pipe and stop drinking the Kool-Aid!
I think it’s easier for some people to scapegoat the media than just admit people are sick of the direction the country has been sent.
For example the American Trucking Associations newspaper Transport Topics – which is run top to bottom by former GOP members – called the election for Obama weeks ago.
“With a country evenly divided (roughly 50/50) between the two parties, you would expect most professions to be similarly evenly divided.”
Not so fast. One expects individual professions to be divided according to their interests and where they fit in a larger coalition. Military officers and Evangelical ministers are overwhelmingly GOP. Academics, union members and journalists lean Democratic.
What is amazing about this election is that Obama has, for example, a 2-1 edge among investment bankers, who are normally overwhelmingly Republican.
Also, publishers and the editors who report to them determine news content, not journalists. And, publishers and editors care about not pissing off their readership, for sheer profit, more than their own views.
Demophilus
I have cut and paste you long rebuttal / argument for Obama for all time. Great, Great speech.
“You can’t slander people beyond common sense, or simple reason.” — Exquisite!
McCain is the definition of DC elitist. He owes his entire military and political career to his father and and grandfather being admirals.
It Freaking makes my head want to explode when a guy who went to one of the most exclusive and expensive schools in Northern Virginia talks like he’s some humble bum from nowhere.
MSM? You guys still look at MSM?
I’ve been looking around almost everywhere for this kind of material… I’m ecstatic another person honestly has got the best solution to this sort of elementary subject. You’ve very little understanding the number of web pages We’ve been to over the last hour or so. Thx for your insight