Full disclosure: Of the top three Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton is my third choice. But seriously…
Coverage of this campaign has been laughably bad. In New Hampshire, Clinton was predicted to lose to Obama by double digits. Her “emotional moment” torpedoed any chance she had of winning. Her staff was about to undergo a major upheaval. Fox’s Major Garrett even announced that Clinton vets James Carville and Paul Begala were about to take over her campaign. He continued to report this after both publicly denied it, and Begala told him personally that it wasn’t true. Speculation then turned to when Clinton would drop out of the race.
There is a sad irony to this since not too long ago all the press could talk about was Clinton’s “inevitability.” Then Obama’s win in Iowa made him inevitable and Clinton a has-been.
Coverage of every Democrat has fallen far short of any standard of professionalism. Edwards, when not being outright ignored, was ganged up on for trivialities like haircuts and homestead. Obama was slandered as a potential Muslim extremist who was schooled in a Madrassa. But Clinton has suffered some of the most vile attacks based on the misogynistic tendencies of the male-dominated press corps. Among the most frequent criticisms is the myth that she starts off with higher negatives than other candidates. Here’s the truth:
| Dec 2007 | Favorable | Unfavorable |
| McCain | 53% | 27% |
| Edwards | 49% | 42% |
| Clinton | 48% | 50% |
| Obama | 43% | 51% |
| Thompson | 42% | 42% |
| Giuliani | 40% | 55% |
| Huckabee | 40% | 47% |
| Romney | 38% | 51% |
Both Giuliani and Romney score lower in favorability and higher in unfavorability than Clinton. But do we ever hear reporters talking about how devastatingly unpopular they are?
So the pundits, as usual got it all wrong. They’ve been wrong every step of the way. And when they are shown to be wrong, they simply shift their weight and devise a new theory that will later be shown to be wrong as well. The big problem with that is that they will be on the air tomorrow (and many more tomorrows) to get it wrong some more.
Why does it have to be that way? Wouldn’t it be great if punditry worked more like Jeopardy? Whoever has scored the highest by the end of the day gets to come back and play the next day. Those who got more of their answers wrong are never heard from again. This simple modification of the rules of the game would vastly improve the media’s political analysis.
