Gary Pearce posted on February 15, 2008 18:14
Hillary Clinton’s biggest constituency problem isn’t black voters or young voters or any other demographic group. It’s the media.
She’s overwhelmingly losing the media primary.
In fact, if you listen to the talking cableheads, you’d think her campaign is in total meltdown.
Every primary, every caucus, every finance report, every change in her campaign, every move she makes, every breath she takes – the media seizes upon as evidence that she has the lead role in Night of the Living Campaign Dead.
The visceral hatred for her – and the swoon for Obama – is striking.
But that’s politics.
Carter Wrenn, unlike me, has been in a presidential campaign. He observed once that the biggest difference from a statewide race is the news media. In a state race, you can buy enough TV to overwhelm the news. But you can’t in a presidential race. They overwhelm you.
Especially in today’s 24-hour cable frenzy and blogosphere.
The Media Primary may be the story of this election.
The media turned on Mitt Romney and John Edwards. They were portrayed – night after night – as phonies.
The media loves John McCain. He’s funny and forthright and – look! – he talks with us and jokes with us!
Same with Mike Huckabee. What a great interview! What a funny guy! He plays air hockey with Colbert! Book him! (Just don’t get him going on that Jesus stuff.)
Things do look tough for Hillary. But she’s only about 100 delegates behind. There are some big primaries to go. She has real strengths as a candidate.
The challenge is whether she can survive the nightly drumbeat for the next three weeks.
Click Here to discuss and comment on this and other articles.