Obama and Clinton viewed in an equally positive light by American media

Washington D.C. - A new study was released Friday by the Project for Excellence in Journalism on the tone of the media coverage of the three candidates still running for the White House; John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
The research, conducted by the Pew Research Center in partnership with the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University looked at how various mainstream media outlets have talked about the three Senators since the beginning of the year.
It appears, for example, that the accusations brought forward by the Clinton campaign that media coverage has been more accepting of Barack Obama than of the ex-first lady are not grounded in any data. In fact, the study found that the image of the two democratic candidates that has been portrayed by the media has been equally positive until March and then it has become increasingly negative toward Obama. The report says; "From January 1, just before the Iowa caucuses, through March 9, following the Texas and Ohio contests, the height of the primary season, the dominant personal narratives in the media about Obama and Clinton were almost identical in tone, and were both twice as positive as negative...The trajectory of the coverage, however, began to turn against Obama, and did so well before questions surfaced about his pastor Jeremiah Wright...What’s more, an additional analysis of more general campaign topics suggests the Obama narrative became even more negative later in March, April and May."
In general, both Obama and Clinton have been more successful than John McCain in projecting the image they chose. Obama is viewed as representing change and hope and Clinton is described as being experienced and ready to be president on day one, precisely the message their campaigns have been trying to get across. John McCain, instead, doesn't seem as much in control and the media coverage on him has focused significantly on the fact that he's not a true conservative, something that he's been trying to wipe off, so far unsuccessfully .

When Life Imitates Art... It's Not Pretty

John Grisham's latest novel, "The Appeal," was released on January 29, 2008, and is climbing fast the bestseller list. It tells the tale of a Supreme Court race in Mississippi, where a sitting justice is targeted for defeat by business interests. During the campaign, ads accuse the incumbent of being soft on crime and being too tough on business. The stakes are high: the election results could tip the balance of the court to the conservatives. On April 1, 2008, a group of business interests in Wisconsin was able to unseat Justice Louis Butler by launching a campaign of negative ads. A key ad accused Butler of having been the "deciding vote" in a Court decision that resulted "in the release of a sexual predator." But the offender was never released. Another ad from a conservative group, aired 526 times, accused Butler of overturning a murder conviction despite overwhelming evidence of guilt. Problem: the Court based its ruling on new DNA evidence that undercut the prosecution's case.

Looking at the facts, one has the feeling that Grisham's book was used as a campaign manual in Wisconsin: in "The Appeal," a direct-mail letter accused the incumbent of being responsible for setting a child molester free, while the molester escaped from a local jail and died long before the court campaign. In Wisconsin, as a watchdog group affiliated with the Annenberg School of Communication revealed here, "the sex offender remains in the same treatment facility where he was confined when his case went to the Supreme Court." The challenger supported by business interests, Mike Gableman, won 51% to 49%.

In most States, justices are elected, and the campaigns increasingly politicized. Who sits on the highest courts determines where billions of dollars go: to corporations and insurance companies or compensation for those who have been injured. No surprise that, when the stakes are so high, real-life conspirators get into action, even if that means taking a page from John Grisham.

Clinton goes to Jay Leno's show to defuse issue of truthfulness

As we reported earlier this week, Clinton was attacked on the key issue of her truthfulness because of misleading statements made during a visit at George Washington University. Talking about a trip to Bosnia in 1996, Hillary had said that her plane landed "under sniper fire." Quite embarrassing, when footage of the event broadcasted by the networks revealed that there was no fire, and that she was welcomed by a red carpet and a young girl presenting her flowers. Satirical videos promptly appeared on You Tube (see this, for example).

The Senator from New York's skilled communication staff chose to cut short clumsy explanations, and sent her to Jay Leno's show, where she opened with a well-crafted one-liner: "I was worried I wasn't going to [arrive on time], I was pinned down by sniper fire." Leno's interruption, "Really!" made the audience laugh, she "admitted" her exaggerations, proved to be capable of self-irony and now the Clinton's campaign hopes the issue will fade. The (very serious) issues of the role of late-night shows in the American political process were first discussed in an excellent Salon article by Michael Scherer on Stephen Colbert two years ago, and now by  Russell L. Peterson's new book "Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke," below.

A VIDEO THAT WILL HAUNT HILLARY FOR A LONG TIME

In a single week, this ironic video posted by "Barely Political" (the nickname of "I Got a Crush on Obama" producer) collected 1.6 million hits on You Tube. Quite damaging for Clinton's reputation.

Does Negative Political Advertising Pay?

One field of political communication that developed enormously in the last 20 years is related to TV commercials attacking political competitors: "negative campaigning" in the professional jargon. While there is no consensus on the general effect of smear tactics, several scholars maintain that they indeed damage the political process, shrinking and polarizing the electorate. What seems certain is that politicians hit by them, particularly if they are slow or timid in responding, do lose support. There are few doubts that Michael Dukakis's campaign was put in disarray by the "Willie Horton" and "Dukakis in the tank" commercials, produced by George Bush's consultants in 1988.
Compared to those, or to the "Swift Boat" ad aired by Republicans in 2004 against John Kerry, the "It's 3 AM and the telephone is ringing" commercial broadcasted in Texas by Hillary Clinton was not stronger than a cup of tea. And, in truth, it did not prevent Democrats from breaking any previous record of mobilization in Texas. However, while the last polls predicted a tie, with Obama catching up and maybe surpassing her, in the end it was the former First Lady who won. Part of her success can be explained by the effect of the commercial on precisely those voters it targeted, the Democrats and Independents, mostly female, who made up their mind only at the last minute.
The exit polls suggest that Obama and Clinton were tied among Democrats who made up their mind early (50-49), but there is evidence that she won handily among those voters who decided in the last three days, that is when her attacks were hitting Obama the hardest. In this category (one voter in five) Hillary got 60% of ballots, a huge margin. A pocket calculator is enough to show that it was this group which put her over the top, 51% to 47%. Obama's campaign responded, and You Tube quickly filled up with spoofs and parodies. No matter, the ad worked where it was supposed to work. Remember that before making any predictions about the results in November.

Classic Political Ads: Daisy Girl (1964)

In Texas and Ohio, both Clinton and Obama aired videos on the theme of "What will happen to our children in case of war?" Their products were rather disappointing compared to this unsurpassed piece of political communication bravura, Tony Schwartz's spot for Lyndon Johnson (here in a poor quality version) that was aired only once, in September 1964, and completely dominated the campaign afterwards. It remains to this day more exciting and fresh of anything seen recent years.

Politics and Emotion

During the 1990s, Political Science Departments in American universities filled up with economists, and economics models became the major academic field allowing predictions not only for public behavior but also for politics in the United States.
Now, in some universities like Harvard, many social scientist admit that, although economics offers very elegant models, they are often models of how people "should" behave according to the paradigm of homo oeconomicus, rather than models of how people actually do behave. And so we bring in the psychology of judgment and decision making in order to find out how people actually do make decisions: a very interesting interview with Jennifer Lerner on Emotion, Judgment and Public Policy here.

Money and Planning, or Message and Listening to the voters?

Primaries in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania are still weeks ahead, but newspapers are already publishing obituaries of Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign. The Christian Science Monitor writes that: "When the dust had settled after Super Tuesday, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton were locked in a dead heat for the Democratic presidential nomination. Since then, over the past two weeks, Senator Obama has gone on a tear, winning 10 straight primaries and caucuses, and forcing Senator Clinton's back to the wall. Obama now leads the former first lady by almost every conceivable measure – total delegates, total popular vote, national polls, and finances. What happened? On Clinton's part, her straits represent a massive failure of planning and organization, analysts say. Her campaign operated on the assumption she would have the nomination effectively locked up with the 22 contests on Feb. 5, and it spent accordingly. The lack of a Plan B has left her scrambling for cash and organizing late in the post-Super Tuesday contests." So, it was a technical problem, a defect of planning. Too bad that now it is too late.
While there is a kernel of truth in the analysis, all this remains within the boundaries of a mistaken vision of American elections. True, the know-how of electioneering is important, resources and planning are as important as they would be in a military campaign, but it is wrong to look at American elections as games of chess, baseball or football. The media love the format of competion, they crave for personal duels, and nothing excites the journalists pack more than candidates going mano a mano (the bizarre, faux-Italian, slang for "close combat").
This approach neglects the facts that voters, too, want to have their say. Public opinion remains less compliant that many would love it, and Political Communication is not yet an exact science. While the list of successes in manipulating citizens through skillfull propaganda is longer than the Mississippi river, sometimes the "handlers" of politicians fail miserably not because of a lack of professional skill but because they don't register with citizens' fears and hopes.
Clinton's mistake was not in the technicalities but in the central assumptions of her campaign: that experience was all important, that name recognition was a priceless asset, that the network of supporters hard-won before and after the White House years was a resource that could not be matched by Obama or Edwards. Unfortunately, in 2008 experience and name recognition are not central considerations in the minds of voters. Hillary should have looked to the polls that show how only TWELVE PER CENT of likely voter think that Congress is doing a good job, while FORTY-SIX think it's doing a poor job. Just 4% of Democrats believe the nation is better off today than it was four years ago, while 91% disagree. According to Rasmussen Reports, "Sixteen percent (16%) say the country is heading in the right direction while 78% disagree and say the United States is on the wrong track. These figures are slightly more pessimistic than they were in December. Women are more pessimistic than men." And what about the issues? 80% of voters think that the Economy is of top importance to them, a few points ahead of Government Ethics and Corruption, a top issue for 76% of Americans.
These numbers do tell a story: voters want change. Change in Iraq (two thirds want the troops home in a short time). Change in the "benign neglect" Congress and the President adopted toward the economy. Change in the "productivity" of institutions, paralyzed by special interests (a polite word for corporations' lobbysts).
All this explains McCain's and Obama's successes. Voters want to turn the page, and therefore rejected "experience" as an important qualification for candidates: Giuliani had experience in dealing with 9/11, and went nowhere. Romney had experience as a businessman and a governor, and voters snubbed him. Hillary Clinton had a lot of experience, and in fairness it appears that she has learned from it, but this is not the right year for the message.