Political Coverage Double Standard?
Tomorrow, Mississippi will be holding both it’s Democratic and Republican primaries. While the GOP outcome is already decided for John McCain, Mississippi gets to have an impact on the Democratic results far greater than in previous primaries. Generally, by the time Mississippi gets around to voting, BOTH parties have selected a candidate already, or AT LEAST a frontrunner. Not so, this year.
The prognosticators are already going out on a limb and predicting a major win for Barack Obama. Because of the large African-American population in the state, it seems like a pretty safe guess. While Hillary Clinton would love a win here, she is putting most of her efforts into Pennsylvania (where she is leading at present) and North Carolina (where the large African-American community makes it look like another sure win for Obama).
With all the ups-and-downs of this long drawn-out campaign, just about the only sure thing voters can count on is that neither candidate will snare enough delegates to avoid a brokered convention.
As the attacks between Clinton and Obama become more heated, divisions in the party are becoming more pronounced. Media assaults on Clinton continue, while Obama continues to get handled with kid gloves. Why else would the media be releasing news stories stating that Clinton is not such a great leader because she can’t control infighting and negative comments from her staff?
On the other hand, a big story last week was the resignation of Stephanie Power from the Obama campaign, after she referred to Hillary Clinton as “a monster”. There was quite a bit of coverage of Ms. Power’s remarks, including her statements in an interview with the BBC that Obama may not be able to end the war in 2009, as he’s promised.
This insider info really could have put a strain on the Obama campaign. This is especially true since part of his platform has been his promise to end the war in Iraq, coupled with blaming Clinton for voting to start it. But interestingly enough, that part of the story kinda “disappeared”. Yes, Ms. Powers, a Pulitzer-Prize winning author, unpaid volunteer and personal friend of the candidate resigned. But why was there not ONE accusation about Obama’s ‘lack of leadership’ for not controlling negative comments from HIS staff? Could we be seeing a double-standard here? Hmmmm!
I like to think that I’m pretty objective about both candidates, so I can’t be the only one who’s noticed this ‘preferential treatment’. Yep! Smacks of a media double standard to me.
Tags: Barack Obama, brokered convention, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Mississippi primary, North Carolina primary, Pennsylvania primary, Politics, Presidential primary, Stephanie PowerLeave a Reply
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