Political Journalists Discuss Media’s Coverage of the Presidential Race

On February 20th, Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post and the Politico’s Mike Allen came to Georgetown to speak about the 2008 presidential election and the media’s coverage of the race. Cillizza, who is a Georgetown grad (COL ’98) writes the popular political blog The Fix at WashingtonPost.com, while Mike Allen is the chief political correspondent for The Politico. MSNBC’s David Schuster was previously scheduled to attend, but is apparently still sitting in the corner thinking about what he’s done.

Mike Allen (pictured at right) described the media as a group of 5 year olds playing soccer—all crowding together at once, chasing the ball until it’s kicked and the entire horde follows. He pointed to Mike Huckabee, who received almost no coverage until he came out of nowhere to become a serious contender and media darling, as a perfect example.

Cillizza noted that by last summer, the media had essentially written off John McCain’s candidacy. Whether you looked at fundraising, polls, or momentum, the conventional wisdom suggested that there was no way he could come back, Cillizza explained. In hindsight, of course, his comeback seems predictable, even inevitable—amidst a weak field, he was the natural successor as standard-bearer in a party that likes the ‘next guy in line’.

On the Democratic side, Chris Cillizza offered an insightful explanation for the surprising success of Barack Obama’s campaign. “If Obama ran a standard campaign, he would’ve lost”, because “no one can out-political the Clintons”, he said. However, Obama transformed the race into a choice between a movement and an idea on one hand, and a mere candidate (Clinton) on the other. A vote for Obama became “a vote for the idea that things can be better”, Cillizza described. As Clinton found out, “It’s hard to campaign against the hopes and dreams of the American people”.

The discussion inevitably turned to the issue of bias in media coverage of candidates. Chris Cillizza said that “people tend to think there’s a conspiracy”, that the media all gets together and decides which candidates to cover and not to cover, but in reality “it’s more haphazard than it seems”.
“Except for the conspiracy not to cover Ron Paul—that’s real by the way”, Allen joked.
They revealed that it is difficult for the media, which has limited resources, to decide who to pay attention to.

Moderator Eric Langenbacher, a Government professor and ardent Clinton supporter, demanded an explanation for what he viewed as the media’s bias against Hillary Clinton and incredibly favorable coverage of Barack Obama. Allen and Cillizza didn’t dispute that Obama has gotten more favorable treatment, but argued that it was not bias against a particular candidate that usually slants the media’s coverage, but rather a bias in favor of what makes a good story- a competitive race, a compelling personal narrative, and the ‘next big thing’. Obama was appealing to the media because he was an underdog for much of the race and offered a fresh alternative to Clinton, who was essentially old news.

When asked for their predictions for the election, both Cillizza and Allen were quick to point out that the pundits have consistently been wrong during the campaign. For this reason, Cillizza was hesitant to say that Clinton is finished, adding that no one wants to count Hillary out after she defied the conventional wisdom with a surprise victory in New Hampshire. Nonetheless, he said that she needs Obama to make “one huge mistake or a series of small mistakes” in order to come back.

Neither Allen nor Cillizza were willing to guess who the ultimate winner in November will be. Cillizza said that it is difficult to know what the shape of the general election will look like, but admitted that the Democrats have several factors going in their favor; there has been 8 years of GOP rule, the public trusts the Democrats more on almost every issue, and turnout for the Democrats had been 2-3 times higher for than Republicans’ in the primaries so far. Interestingly, though, Allen anticipates a tipping point in either direction that will lead to a significant margin of victory for one candidate. This will not be a “50-50 nation” in November, Allen said.

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Tags: Media

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