Monday Muse; Presidential Race Takes a Temporary Backseat

March 24th, 2008

A Lull in the [Endless] Conversation?

Now that we’re more than two weeks removed, forward or backwards, from any significant primaries or caucuses, the presidential candidates are finding themselves in a strange place: Out of the spotlight. Now that’s not to say the story of the campaign has receded into the aether, it’s actually still getting the most press of any news story. The election has simply plummetted in press coverage compared to the rest of the year, getting only 27% of all news coverage from March 10th to March 16th, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, barely beating out the Eliot Spitzer scandal, which got 23% of media coverage.

If you’re a Republican, the media coverage trend is rather disappointing, despite being explainable, with John McCain only being a significant factor in 4% of all news stories during that week, down from 14% the previous week. Now that the GOP nomination has been wrapped up for over a month, Republicans failed to register 10% of campaign related stories, with the entire party being overshadowed by Gerry Ferarro and Reverend Wright.

Barack Obama locked up the heavily coveted nomination of Governor Bill Richardson the other day. James Carville, Bill Clinton’s number one strategist, was quoted as calling Richardson, a member of Bill Clinton’s cabinet, “Judas.” Bill Richardson is expected by many to be Obama’s vice presidential nominee because he is a former Ambassador, representative, secretary of energy (under Bill Clinton), and current governor of a swing state. Besides having an amount of experience to make even Hillary Clinton drool, Richardson is one of the nation’s most prominent latino politicians, and could likely counterbalance McCain’s popularity among latinos. One interesting trend is that Richardson seems to be trying to make himself look more hispanic.

Before:

After (right)

In other news, the new governor of New York, Paterson (I don’t get why his name is spelled with only one “t” but it is) has admitted that he one-upped Eliot Spitzer by offering government jobs to the women he cheated on his wife with. I think they should just bite the bullet and replace him with a pimp to govern New York.

Hillary Clinton has finally released her white house records, which showed little to no presidentially relevant experience, and mainly consisted of events such as having tea with other first ladies and cutting ribbons at grand openings of hospitals. It kind of shoots the “35 years of experience” argument. The New York Times, normally the most pro-Clinton news source out there, put it best:

“When the World Trade Center was attacked for the first time on Feb. 26, 1993, President Bill Clinton flew to New York to be briefed on the attack and the response by city, state and federal authorities. According to newly released White House calendars of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s time as first lady, Mrs. Clinton stayed behind in Washington to attend a photo shoot with Parade magazine and a performance of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar.’”

Al Franken has lost his polling lead against Norm Coleman in the Minnesota senate race, and now trails by 2%. Franken’s opponent, Mike Ciresi, has dropped out of the nomination process so a lengthy general election is now beginning in what will likely be the most newsmaking senate race this year. Franken, a comedian and SNL writer (those two things aren’t always mutually exclusive) had a three point polling lead last month.

The Democratic race is winding down though Hillary Clinton continues to expand her lead in Pennsylvania, and polls are beginning to show her being just as electable as Obama. As politico, a normally pro-Clinton website detailed in an article by Mike Allen called “The Clinton Myth,” the media is pretending Clinton still has a chance to win the nomination because this race is getting them record ratings, and they don’t want it to end. And that’s the Muse.

One Response

1. 8:24 AM on March 25th, 2008American Abroad:

   This is one of the best written blogs on the Web. Are you really a high school student?

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