The media tips its hand (i.e., it's always good news for Republicans!)
02.06.08 - Posted by AsiansVote
For a hint of what's coming from the media, take a peek at Adam Nagourney's laughable news analysis for the New York Times that MSNBC has subheaded: "Dems faces potentially divisive race, while GOP could rally around nominee." The article pushes the theory that if McCain wraps up his nomination quickly, he will have more time to make nice with his conservative opponents, while the Democrats will probably be running against each other all the way to the convention. A fair enough thesis. But while he briefly mentions McCain's troubles with fundamentalist leader James C Dobson (who has stated he cannot vote for McCain in November), Nagourney ignores the fevered attacks on McCain from right wing luminaries such as Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck. And Nagourney's analysis of exit polls ignores the most relevant data in order to paint a falsely bleak picture for Democrats. Nagourney writes:
Surveys of voters leaving the polls suggested a reprise of the identity politics that has so long characterized — and at times bedeviled — Democratic politics. Black voters overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama, suggesting an end to a period in which Mrs. Clinton could remain competitive with Mr. Obama for the support of that segment of the Democratic electorate.
The key question, of course, is whether voters of one candidate will support another once the primary is over. And Nagourney ignores the answer provided by CNN's Bill Schneider:
Though close, the exit polls suggested that the Democratic base is not bitterly divided over its choice.
Nearly two-thirds -- 72 percent -- of Democratic voters said they'd be satisfied with Clinton as the nominee, and 71 percent said they'd be happy with Obama.
Clinton and Obama will clearly face the question of how to run against each other without alienating each others' voters. But Nagourney's claim that prospects for party unity are "decidedly less auspicious for the Democrats" than they are for Republicans seems to be backed up by little more than Nagourney's own imagination.
UPDATE: See the MediaMatters video below for more insight into how the media will continue to treat McCain. And then check out Howard Dean's letter describing how the fight to change that narrative must begin now.
