Election Campaign Coverage

Okay, there are a couple of months yet, so theoretically something could happen in that time to change things. Nonetheless, if I had to call the upcoming US Presidential election right now...

Working at a public library, I tend to catch glances of various local and regional newspapers from time to time.

The current, incumbent President recently made a campaign pass through Ohio. The newspapers, of course, covered this event. Some of them even put it on the front page, naturally. I mean, how often does the President of the Whole Entire United States visit your home town? That's gotta be news. But look at the photographs they're running.

I do not believe these photographs were selected to make the President look good. The Bucyrus Telegraph Forum has him squinting, brow wrinkled, lips pursed, teeth showing in the middle, so that he looks simultaneously disturbed and also comical. The Mansfield News Journal's choice of photo is worse: they apparently managed to get a shot of the President simultaneously scowling and screaming, face twisted with some obviously unpleasant emotion, possibly rage.

In video coverage, these kinds of faces flash past in a second or two, and the person goes on to have other expressions some of the time as well. In a still shot, you get one instant captured, and the people who pick the photo get to pick the instant. They were running these kinds of photos of George W. Bush four years ago. As those of you who have ever lived in a swing state know, the newspapers consistently lean just a little more to the liberal side than the average member of the population at large. I do not believe a Democrat can win in Ohio without their support.

And it would be somewhat unusual for anyone, Democrat or otherwise, to be elected President without winning Ohio's electoral votes.

So if I had to call the election today, I would predict that Romney will win.

2 comments:

Jonadab said...

I have recently been made aware that the phenomenon is not limited to Ohio. Apparently the President's reelection campaign does not have the full support of Newsweek, either.

US News and World Report can be unpredictable, but an incumbent Democrat should have been able to hang onto Newsweek's support. The fact that he has not managed to do so indicates that he has overspent his political capital and does not have enough public approval left to make reelection.

He does appear to still have Time on his side. If he'd lost that one too I'd be predicting a landslide.

Jonadab said...

So much for my reputation as a flawless prognosticator ;-)