“Deathwatch Coverage”: Why The Media Are Digging Jeb Bush’s Grave
Why hasn’t Jeb Bush started complaining about the liberal media yet? Maybe it’s because he knows that at this critical moment for his campaign, it’s important to look sunny and optimistic. But he’d have a much better case to make than his primary opponents, who are all whining about how CNBC was mean to them at their last debate. The coverage of Jeb’s campaign right now is unremittingly negative, in ways that are, if understandable, not exactly fair. The Jeb Bush Deathwatch has begun, and it’s going to be awfully difficult for him to get past it.
Back in 1983, scholars Michael Robinson and Margaret Sheehan first wrote about “deathwatch coverage” in their book about the media’s role in the 1980 presidential campaign, Over the Wire and on TV. “The deathwatch generally begins with a reference to the candidate’s low standing in the polls,” they wrote, “moves on to mention financial or scheduling problems, and ends with coverage of the final press conference, in which the candidate withdraws.” Even before it gets to that terminal point, however, the press can decide as one that you’re circling the drain, and the result will be a wave of intensely negative coverage.
Let’s take a little tour of the articles about Jeb in the media just from one day, last Friday. “Can Jeb Bush Come Back?” (Washington Post). “Jeb Bush’s Existential Crisis” (CNN). “All the Money In the World May Not Save Jeb Bush’s Campaign” (Los Angeles Times). “Jeb Bush Campaign Faces Criticism, Skepticism Following Debate” (USA Today). “Jeb Bush Seeks to Recover Momentum After Debate” (Wall Street Journal). “Jeb Bush: Campaign ‘Is Not on Life Support'” (NBC News).
The headlines only partly convey how brutal things are getting for Bush. All the questions he now faces are about process—not “How would your tax plan work?” but “Why aren’t you doing better?” They’re questions about the campaign itself, not about what he wants to do if he becomes president. Reporters have also taken to asking Jeb whether he’s having fun on the campaign trail, which has a whiff of cruelty about it. He plainly isn’t, but what is he supposed to say? It’s almost as though they just want to see how he’s going to squirm. They might explain that they’re asking him this question because in January 2014 he said he intended to campaign “joyfully,” and there’s not much joy in Jebville right now. But that’s an excuse, not a justification.
So the frame of almost every story about Bush is how he’s floundering, struggling, and sinking. When you’re operating within that frame, it determines the kinds of questions you ask, not just of Bush himself when you get the chance, but of the other people you interview, and of yourself as you’re writing your story. Those questions will be things like: What’s he doing wrong? Why don’t people like him? What mistakes has he made?
When you set out to answer those questions, everything you produce will reflect poorly on Bush. That doesn’t mean there’s anything inaccurate about the coverage, just that it focuses on one particular aspect of reality and not others.
Now let’s compare that to Marco Rubio, whom most knowledgeable people have now concluded is the most likely Republican nominee. If you wanted, you could ask similarly uncomplimentary questions about him. Why has this guy who was once hailed as the savior of the Republican Party been unable to get more than 10 percent or so of the vote in national polls? Why is he stuck in fourth place in Iowa and sixth place in New Hampshire? How come he’s being beaten in fundraising by the likes of Ben Carson and Ted Cruz?
Those are perfectly legitimate questions, but if the focus of your story about Rubio is how he’s on the rise, they’re the kinds of things you’ll either leave out completely or deal with quickly (in the inevitable “To be sure…” paragraph).
Now for my own “To be sure…” paragraph: To be sure, there are perfectly good reasons why a reporter would describe Jeb’s campaign the way it’s being described and ask the questions he’s being asked. Expectations for him were very high. He was supposed to be this year’s version of the well-established, middle-aged white guy the GOP always nominates, and his super PAC quickly raised a staggering $100 million. For a time, he was indeed the frontrunner (though he never averaged more than 15 percent in the polls), so the fact that he’s now in fourth place or so is a significant fall. And Jeb hasn’t been particularly compelling on the stump, to say the least. He has struggled with things like trying to figure out whether the Iraq War was a mistake, and he seems flummoxed by the competition he’s gotten from other candidates, particularly Donald Trump.
But let’s not forget that no one has actually voted for president yet. The Iowa caucuses are still three months away. Super Tuesday isn’t until a month after that. The voters of California, our most populous state, don’t vote until June, a full seven months from now. A heck of a lot is going to happen just between now and Iowa.
Not only that, while Jeb’s place in the polls is certainly nothing to be proud of, other candidates getting much more positive attention aren’t doing much better. In the Huffpost Pollster average, Jeb is at 7.5 percent, admittedly no great shakes. But Rubio, who is now luxuriating in an invigorating bath of positive press coverage, is at a whopping 8.5 percent. Everyone seems to think Rubio is probably going to be the nominee, but the voters themselves don’t seem to be aware of it yet. Ted Cruz, whom insiders think has shrewdly positioned himself to be a strong contender as the race winnows? He’s at 5.5 percent.
One of the attractions of the deathwatch story for reporters always looking for a new angle on the presidential race is that it’s novel and, in its way, rather dramatic. And like much of what the press does, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy: Say that a candidate is toast often enough, and before long donors won’t want to contribute to him and voters won’t bother to support him. But we’re still far enough away from the primaries that another new story, the exciting Jeb Comeback, is still a possibility. He might even earn that exclamation point after his name. Is it likely? Maybe not. But you never know.
By: Paul Waldman, Senior Writer, The American Prospect, November 2, 2015
“Reading The 2016 Tea Leaves”: GOP Candidates Shaping Up To Be No Match For Hillary Clinton
Pull up a chair and step into my political therapy and prediction parlor.
Jeb Bush, let’s start with you. It’s over. Seldom has the nation’s political class expected so much promise – and seen and heard so little – from a presidential contender.
On Aug. 31, in this space, I declared the former Florida governor “unelectable.” Few pundits and pollsters grasped that at the time. Except for Maureen Dowd, who just published a sharp-edged elegy for Jeb in The New York Times. She’s the leading observer of the Bushes in the wild in Washington, Florida, Texas and Maine.
All I knew was that Jeb had nothing smart, witty or winning to say. My friends and I were gobsmacked that there was a Bush we liked less than the warmongering George W. Bush, who left the country trashed just like his Yale fraternity house. Jeb’s dreary, dutiful campaign came across like peeling an onion and ending up in tears.
His frail father, the 41st president, recently restated the Bush philosophy in a note to Jeb: “Go win.” Letting down “Poppy” (George H.W. Bush’s nickname) will be the the unkindest cut for Jeb.
But entitlement and mediocrity don’t sell well a second time around the block. Clueless Jeb thought his last name was an asset and found no fault with “my brother.” That’s how he was raised in the competitive family jock compound, from mother’s milk on: Bushes win, whatever it takes. (Case in point: Florida in 2000.) Sorry, but he deserves to lose before the first ballot is cast for boring us silly.
Jeb feels doubly betrayed, first because the party could not save his place, his rightful first place in the race. Second, young Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida rebuked him in the last debate for making a snide remark about Rubio missing Senate votes. (Jeb managed to insult France, too.) That was utterly devastating moment for Bush, shaking up his blue-blooded order of things. Refusing to defer, Rubio met his mentor as an equal on the field of battle and drew blood. Anything but nimble, if Jeb can’t nail an opponent for missing votes (a cardinal sin), then let him be gone. In Donald Trump’s words: “You’re fired.”
Now it’s your turn, Sen. Rubio, the new media darling, because that’s how fickle we are. I’ve actually watched him in the Senate, when he shows up, and can tell you he is seen as a show horse, not a workhorse. That’s a quaint distinction, but it’s as if it were invented for Rubio, who has done virtually nothing of weight. There were high hopes in 2013 that he might build a bipartisan immigration bill, but he did not have the legislative chops to make that happen. Simply put, Rubio does not command enough respect among his 99 colleagues to do something big in a divided body. Lately, his open scorn for the job is hurting his Senate Q score even more.
Now comes Sen. Ted Cruz, another young, southern Republican in the running. He is probably the least-liked senator, known for his tea parties of one on the Senate floor and his insults and barbs across the aisle. He even “dissed” his own majority leader, Mitch McConnell, which is just not done in public. Cruz doesn’t care. He was a champion debater at Princeton and clearly loves politics as a blood sport. He’s also shrewd enough to cast his lot with Trump, who looks like the jovial Muffin Man next to Cruz.
Brighter and meaner than Rubio, still Cruz shares something important in common with him. They’re both children of Cuban immigrants. Fidel Castro’s influence still reaches down to the children of the exiled generation, who have dominated the political scene in Miami. They hold important seats in Congress, too, always a vehemently conservative coalition. And I mean, even more reactionary than your average elephant. Most prominent Cuban-Americans in national politics are still acting out in anger (or reacting) over the Castro revolution. That event happened more than 50 years ago, before Rubio and Cruz were born. Let’s move on, shall we?
It’s ironic that just as President Obama unlocks the door to diplomatic relations with Cuba, there are two candidates to succeed him that have been shaped by furious anti-Castro feeling as an article of political faith. It would be sad if this hostility reached the level of the White House.
To wrap up, Vice President Joe Biden was wise not to go to the deep end of the pool and run for president for a third time. He will be 73 this month. While many swooned for him, fellow scribes, I wrote weeks ago the likable Biden was not really electable, either. I won’t go into all that again.
Let me count the most important reason Biden was right – getting in history’s way. They call the zeitgeist wind Hillary Clinton, and my muse is reading it right so far. Let’s say this from the parlor: She is going to blow them all away.
By: Jamie Stiehm, Washington Whispers, U. S. News and World Report, November 2, 2015
“Pursuing An All-Purpose Teflon Uniform”: Rubio Assaults The MSM, Which Loves Him
Speaking of Marco Rubio… a big part of his boffo performance at the CNBC debate the other night was his claim that the MSM had become a “Democratic Super-PAC,” with the supposed evidence being its cover-up of HRC “lies” about her behavior after Benghazi! “exposed” by Trey Gowdy’s committee. Yea, verily, the MSM went “around saying it was the greatest week in Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”
Now before you even unpack this pack of–well, mischaracterizations–it’s worth noting in passing that it wasn’t just the MSM that adjudged HRC’s appearance before the Benghazi! Committee as a triumph for her over her inquisitors; conservative commentators generally agreed.
Beyond that, as WaPo fact-checker Glenn Kessler concluded, Rubio, not HRC, is the one with the Pinnochios on this subject.
After untangling and refuting Rubio’s claims, Greg Sargent has a pungent interpretation of what Rubio is trying to accomplish here:
It’s important to understand that the claim that the hearing is what unmasked Clinton’s “lie” is crucial to the story Rubio is trying to tell, a tale told to the GOP base…. The narrative that the media deliberately obscured this on Clinton’s behalf helps discredit media scrutiny of Rubio’s own distortions, and that scrutiny will in turn likely be converted into evidence that Rubio poses a dire threat to Clinton — the liberal media perceives this threat, and thus wants to tear him down. But the highest-profile foundational claim Rubio has thus far offered to support this narrative structure just doesn’t hold up.
In other words, Rubio’s pursuing an all-purpose teflon uniform against any slings and arrows that come his way from the MSM, which is obviously shilling for Hil. But here’s the thing: Best I can tell, at this very moment the MSM is busy all but crowning Rubio the Republican nominee. So why is he all but calling them Enemies of Freedom? It could be that GOP rank-and-file media hatred has assumed quasi-religious proportions, and he’s just exploiting it. Or maybe there really is some dirt on Rubio that could soon come out.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, October 30, 2015
“Satisfying The ‘Most Intense, Extreme Part’ Of The Republican Party”: Many GOP Voters On Board With Impeaching Hillary Clinton
It was just two weeks ago that Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) raised the prospect of impeaching Hillary Clinton, even though she hasn’t been elected. The far-right congressman is apparently so concerned about her email server management that he believes she would, literally on her inauguration day, be “subject to impeachment because she has committed high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Soon after, the Alabama Republican talked to MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki about his intentions, and Brooks seemed quite sincere about impeaching Clinton, despite the fact that she hasn’t, in reality, even been accused of breaking any laws.
And while this is obviously just one unhappy congressman, Public Policy Polling asked North Carolina Republicans for their thoughts on the matter.
If Hillary Clinton is elected President, would you support or oppose impeaching her the day she takes office?
* Support impeaching Hillary Clinton the day she takes office: 66%
* Oppose impeaching Hillary Clinton the day she takes office: 24%
* Not sure: 10%
Obviously, the only fair conclusion is that one-third of the GOP voters in North Carolina are Republicans In Name Only.
For her part, Clinton has apparently heard about the impeachment idea. When she sat down with Rachel late last week, and the subject came up, the former Secretary of State said, “Isn’t that pathetic? It’s just laughable, it’s so totally ridiculous.”
Clinton added the rhetoric is likely intended to satisfy “the most intense, extreme part” of the Republican base.
If the PPP survey is correct, it may very well be working.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, October 30, 2015
“Living The Realities Of Supply-Side Economic Failures”: Debate Questions Naturally Lean Left Because Mainstream Voters And Reality Do
Timothy Carney at the Washington Examiner wrote a piece getting a decent amount of attention today proclaiming that liberal media bias exists and that it affected the CNBC debate. Unlike most of bloviating on the topic from the right, Carney actually adduces evidence for his point of view. After the usual blather about how most journalists lean Democratic (most professionals in almost every field requiring professional education do, which should tell conservatives something), he does something useful by illustrating what a debate from a conservative perspective might look like:
They could have asked Kasich: “Why did you increase Medicaid under Obamacare in Ohio?” They could have asked Trump, “How can eminent domain for corporate gain be squared with free-enterprise views?” They could have asked Rubio about sugar subsidies, or Cruz if his “defund Obamacare” fight did any good, or Jeb Bush about his support for more immigration. They could have asked Christie about his liberal court appointments.
They instead asked for price controls and regulations, they asked about the social compact in entitlement spendings, they asked why not to support budget-busting deals. Most questions were either non-ideological, and many were from a liberal perspective. When they asked about marijuana legalization it wasn’t from an anti-drug perspective or a libertarian perspective, but a “more government revenue” perspective.
OK fine, but here’s the problem with that: most voters don’t care about those things, or they’re couched in a way that would only reinforce the hostility of mainstream voters. Any moderator that asked a GOP candidate like Kasich why they increased Medicaid as though that were a bad thing, would be inviting all the candidates to lay into him and provide endless soundbites for Democrats in a general election. Because most voters like Medicaid expansion when it’s explained to them. Most voters don’t give a damn about “eminent domain for corporate gain”–not even conservative ones. Corn and sugar subsidies, while important public policy problems that expose crony capitalism and contradictions in conservative ideology, don’t even begin to rate as top issues on the minds of voters or remotely interesting. Nor would inviting other candidates to attack subsidies for farmers be good politics, either to please donors or the public at large. Ted Cruz was asked about his government shutdown tactics, and the question was such a landmine for him that he dodged the question entirely. Meanwhile, immigration has been a big debate question for GOP candidates and Jeb Bush in particular: Bush’s support for immigration reform is the biggest reason for his poor performance in the polls, and the biggest reason for Donald Trump’s ascendance. Asking about immigration reform from a hostile, conservative point of view would only serve to give Trump and Cruz more ammunition, and further alienate Hispanic voters in the general election.
By contrast, taxes and budgets really matter. Education matters. Healthcare matters. Jobs matter. The fact that the public has decidedly liberal positions on those issues, and that the lived reality of supply-side economic failures and government healthcare successes disadvantages conservative ideology, isn’t the fault of debate moderators. It’s the fault of conservative ideology, which should in theory be forced to adjust just as certain aspects of liberalism had to during the 1970s.
These are also the issues on which the Republican nominee will be tested come the general election. Democratic candidates will be forced to answer for issues on which voters have skepticism of liberal positions, from guns to foreign policy to the welfare state–and challenging questions on those issues are consistently asked during Democratic debates, nor are they prejudicial. Republicans are likewise expected to answer for their unpopular positions, because they’ll be forced to defend them in the general election.
The fact that Republicans have more unpopular positions and a weaker track record of success isn’t the fault of debate moderators. It’s the fault of Republican candidates and their ideology.
By: D. R. Tucker, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, October 31, 2015
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