Divas, Mavericks, and Assasins

Tuesday's edition of the Washington Post was riddled with articles about the presidential election, but the few that really came out strongly to me were an article about how Palin is a diva and an article about someone that was going to attempt to assassinate Obama. The article about Palin was much less than complimentary and definitely had a snarky, rude tone about it. The article made many mentions about how Palin was picked because she was pretty, "another maverick", and a woman. The main thing that I thought was interesting about this biased piece was that it outlined that a McCain adviser told CNN that Palin was a diva and didn't listen to anyone, that she didn't really have a relationship with anyone in the campaign and her family, that it was all just a hoax for political gain, and that she is very demanding as far as what she wants. This paper would not print an article bashing Palin like this unless it was trying to sway voters think that Obama is the better choice because McCain's campaign is full of lies, wasteful spending (where it brings up Palin's $150,000 makeover), and general unbalanced-ness.
The other interesting article that was not far away from this particular article was the one about someone planning to assassinate Obama as well as 102 other African Americans. It brings into effect all of the political and racial implications about this topic. However, the article, as I was rather proud of, was not very political in nature except to say that Obama is leading in most national polls. I was impressed that they did not use the opportunity to reason why Obama should "still" win the presidency. Overall, it was a very non biased news article. However, all papers are biased in some capacity as to what content and articles that they wish to print in the first place. They didn't have to run the piece on Palin, nor did they have to run the piece on Obama. Their choices of articles and tones of the pieces show how the Washington Post leans, even if some articles definitely outweigh others in bias.

Gettin' There...

Well, it's been a relatively calm week for so close to the election. The only scandalous news stories that have broken on the Washington Post have been about Sarah Palin and her expensive clothing and makeup selection. Most of the news that the Post has been running is to outline how Obama is supposedly ahead in every polled state that is up for grabs. I've been thinking about this, and I think that this could be a swaying tool for them to use to get people to vote for Obama. Post is of course a liberal paper if you haven't read my previous blogs or known anything at all about the paper, and I was thinking that if people who were either undecided or not necessarily thinking about the election and might not vote read the main stories the past few days about Obama leading in the polls they might decide to not vote at all because they think that maybe Obama's going to win it anyway and that their support for McCain would be wasted. My other thought was that they might be trying to encourage other people to come out and vote for Obama because they might see that most everyone else is voting for him and that he's "going to win anyway" so the people might as well vote for him if he's set up to win as it is right now anyway. The Post has a lot of following and is, next to the New York Times, a very largely and widely read newspaper which might have a lot of influence over people who follow the publication. I just thought that it was an interesting thing to think about how they might just be trying to sway voters or they could be just stating the facts about the polls they have incurred. Either way, the Washington Post could be a very influential piece of literature.

Top 5
1. McCain/Palin's Makeup and Clothing Bills
2. Obama Leading in Virginia Polls
3. Obama Leads on Economic Issues
4. GOP Has Split Personality Disorder
5. Colin Powell's Effect/Bradley Effect

Makeup or Breakup

Today and yesterday, all over the Washington Post website, they had article after article of course saying that McCain is struggling in all of the polls, and mainly focusing what McCain's campaign is not doing rather than what Obama's campaign is or isn't. However, yesterday and today, there have also been a few interesting articles that have been in the lime light on the "On The Trail" section about Palin's wardrobe and makeup choices. It's been all over the news in the last month that the McCain/Palin campaign has spent over $150,000 in dressing and making up Governor Palin. The total of the money was divided up between paying a professional Makeup Artist, who has also done makeup on "Dancing With The Stars", and buying new suits and makeup for Governor Palin to use from high end stores such as Sak's Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. Of course, the Post finds this ridiculous but seems to try not to make it seem like they think that way. They continued to rip on the McCain/Palin campaign, not because they necessarily used the makeup artist and paid for the suits and clothing, but for the fact that they want to portray Palin as a "regular hockey mom" and no hockey mom they know shops as Sak's or Neiman Marcus. Another big deal with the campaign's beautification strategies that the Post brought up was that the campaign was paying more for makeup and clothes for Gov. Palin than they are paying their Foreign Policy advisor for the campaign. The Post believes that this shows where the campaigns loyalties really lie, and that they are just trying to win the election instead of genuinely caring about what will happen to the country in the next 4 years. In the past week since the Post has openly endorsed Senator Obama, they have continually pushed McCain's campaign into the most scrutinized spotlight in order to find anything and everything that he has been doing that is incorrect as to ensure voters for Obama. If it were any more obvious, it would smack you in the face.

It's Electrifying!

Today is yet another good day for Barack Obama's campaign as Colin Powell publically endorsed Obama for President via Meet the Press on NBC. The Post, once this was announced, immediately had the front page of their website taken over with the announcement. This, of course, was such a major announcement because of Powell's affiliation with the Republican party as well as being the former Secretary of State under President Bush's administration. The article was largely complimentary of Powell's decision to endorse Obama and of course highlighted how fatal of a blow this could be for the McCain/Palin campaign. Powell, during the interview, outlined many reasons of why he chose Obama to support and the one thing that the Post picked out was McCain's choice of Palin as a running mate. The article also highlighted Powell's reasoning to not be because of his race, either, but because of a well educated decision in looking at both parties and both candidates and seeing which one was more of what the country was in need of at this time. If this were a right leaning newspaper, surely there would have been multiple well planned out criticisms of Powell's choice; however, since the Post is a liberal leaning paper that has already come out to endorse Obama, their review of Powell is nothing short of glowing, all the while telling how bad this will be for an already hurting McCain campaign. With more and more people and media outlets endorsing Obama, even the Chicago Tribune which is a right-wing newspaper, the Post is not the only one seeing a downturn in McCain's campaign. And this time, not even an SNL visit from Sarah Palin or Joe the Plumber might be able to help.

TOP 5
1. Third/Final Presidential Debate
2. Virginia and North Carolina Favoring Obama
3. Joe the Plumber
4. Colin Powell Endorses Obama
5. Palin SNL Visit

Powell's Interview


Palin Saturday Night Live Rap

Ever Closer

As we come around to the next few wonderful weeks of this election, of course there are more and more little issues that pop up from different parties or media sources to try and swing certain voters either which way. Some of the top articles this week were about the debate which took place on Tuesday evening of this week in which, yet again, it was felt that there was no clear winner from most angles. However, the Washington Post did declare that Obama did a better job of explaining his plans but not enough to woo any unexpected swing voters to change. One of the main news stories on the Post this week was that Obama had risen in the polls in Ohio and that McCain decided to pull out of Michigan completely, a state that could have easily gone to him not too long ago. Recently, the Post has had many articles featuring Gov. Palin's expereince and the dealings with the scandal that was recently cleared. Mostly, the paper has criticized Palin for her actions and judgements with a few complementary reports here and there. Whereas, everything that has centered around Obama has been built up in a positive light, proving that the Post is a liberal leaning paper by all means. Today's top story on the page is about Palin being cleared of the scandal at hand, however it highlights many of the skeptical angles of the story and is less clear about the actual case itself and the inner workings. Another top story today, which actually ran on the front page, was about race "finally" creeping into the race. The race of the candidates as well as the sex has been a topic of discussion with everyone since the candidates have secured their nominations. However, the candidates themselves do everything possible to avoid the subject. The article in the Post highlights the fact that Obama is, in fact, an African-American as well criticizing the people who aren't McCain spokespeople, but have rallies at which Obama is referred to as Barack Hussein Obama in order to highlight his middle name. However, the article never really says anything about McCain being a victim nor Palin. This is an obvious attempt to make Obama look as though he is the victim in such an arguement and that McCain and company are simply pointing fingers and being childish in their arguments and campaign in general. With only a few more weeks left to go, we can only hope that in the coming weeks that the campaigns don't get any more degrading and annoying than they already are.

Top 5
1. Palin Cleared of Scandal
2. Debate on Tuesday
3. Obama Ohio
4. Race Issues
5. McCain Pulls Out of Michigan

Ohio for Obama

It's come to the attention of just about every national news station that Ohio has recently been showing a lean toward Obama. The Washington Post mentions that as of right now, Obama's support seems to be up to 51% whereas McCain's is at 45% of the state. If it were any other state, it shouldn't be such a big deal, however, it has been a fact throughout history that a Republican nominee has never won a presidential election without winning Ohio. This means that if Obama takes Ohio, it is very likely that he will also take the presidency. According to the Washington Post, McCain is having a hard time claiming Ohio because it is such a "blue-collar" state instead of high incomes. McCain's specialties are Iraq, foreign policy, and any kind of warfare. However, in such hard economic times with Obama being viewed as more of an economic leader, Ohio, with a middle class working state base, finds that more important in a candidate at the moment. The support for Obama comes at an extremely opportune time since early voting begins this week in Ohio. The article highlights the amount of text messages and emails sent to voters this year as well as the amazingly high turnout of new voters registering can also be good for Obama. McCain also doesn't do as well with women, which is why he was counting on Gov. Palin to bring some of that support base toward his side, but in Ohio it seems to not be working as well. The biggest factor though in this part of the country is definitely the economy, with Ohio being one of the states that has been hit the hardest by economic issues and job losses. The Ohio voters are just looking for a way out, and they don't, apparently, see that in McCain.

Palin and Biden: Ready to Lead?

After scrolling through all of the economic issues that seem to be everyone's top issues these past few weeks and days, I finally found the featured political articles. The Washington Post highlighted two articles that were counteractive to each other in theory. One was about Palin getting ready for the upcoming debates and the other was about Democrats being concerned that Biden would be...well...Biden. In what should be a fairly interesting match of personalities, the debate will be key in persuading people to either side of the political scene.

However, I found it interesting that in the article written about Palin, the author seemed to be poking more fun at her than actually telling how she will be getting ready for the debate and what issues are important. The article featured many mentions of the CBS interview with Katie Couric, which showed Palin's inexperience both of media shows as well as policy, and the Saturday Night Live spoofs of her failure to know much. Overall, it was a very negatively framed article, made to show people just how much experience and knowledge she might be lacking for the vice presidential nomination.

The article about Biden, however, highlighted his go-getting and harsh personality in debate situations and what democrats thought of it, of course with only one quote stating that it might not be a good thing. It's not in the articles themselves that you can see a bias toward the left, but it is clear when evaluating articles comparing the Democrats and Republicans where the paper's true bias lies. Biden, in the article, would be criticized for his roughness when discussing politics, but glosses over this by saying that it could easily throw Palin's rehearsed responses for a loop. either way, it's becoming more apparent as the campaign continues and the issues and time to the election creep closer where the Post's allegiances are.

Debating the Debate and Other Issues

It certainly has been an interesting week, of course, the Washington Post has featured many different articles as well as not mentioned many things that I'm certain other media outlets have. However, no one can claim that it wasn't an interesting week in the news and in the political scene, with only a few weeks left to go before the ultimate Presidential choice. The main issue that I have scene day after day in the Post has been the debate: Will it happen? Why does McCain want to postpone it? Who won? The first question was the big one. With McCain taking a hiatus from his campaign until some kind of decision was reached on the Wall Street Bail out. Also, though, an article that took place on the main page of the Post for a while analyzed Gov. Palin's interview with Katie Couric in which it analyzed her answers quite harshly and questioned her experience in order to be the Vice Presidential running mate of McCain. The Washington Post covered this week in an array of topics and here are the top five for this week.

1. McCain's Campaign Hiatus
2. Cancellation/Postponement of the Debate
3. Obama and McCain's "Joint" Statement
4. Palin's CBS Interview
5. Debate Focus on Economy May Hurt McCain

To debate or not to debate? That is the question.

Friday September 26, 2008

For the last couple of days, the big news has been that Sen. McCain has decided to suspend his campaign and return to Washington until the financial crisis at hand has been settled. This also, in McCain's eyes, meant suspending the debate that is supposed to take place today. However, the Democrats have said that this is a stupid decision to make and that Sen. Obama will be present at the debate whether McCain shows up or not. The Posts' comments are definitely swaying toward the liberal end by showing more of the Democrats' stance on the issue than that of the Republican party. According to the Post, they believe that McCain's stand still is uncalled for in a time of election when people need to be informed about what kind of decisions and policies the two candidates want to enact. This, in their eyes, is a way for both parties to "show them what they're made of" so to speak. However, the Post doesn't have any perspective from the Republican side of things except to say that they're "hopeful" that they will come to an agreement on the bail out sometime this week. Now, of course, we know that McCain is definitely going to be at the debate tonight at 9:00 E.S.T. However, it wasn't his orignial intention. Many are saying that the move to suspend his campaign was a political stunt to send a message that said "Country first." But the Democratic party, and the Post from the way I'm reading it, seems to think that it's a stupid move, he wasn't essential to the planning, and shows that he can't handle more than one thing at a time. Either way, McCain has resumed campaigning even though a resolution on the bill hasn't been reached in order to come to the debate. The Post only said that he decided to "move forward with the face off."

Obama's Surge in Polling

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 10:00 p.m.

Due to all of the crazy economic events that have happened in the past week and a half, the Washionton Post, as well as many other sources that I have examined, has seen an increase in Obama's ratings in the national polls this week. People seem to generally believe that in times of economic crisis, the Democratic cantidate is the one that is the better choice, especailly in this case where the current administration is quite Republican. The Post highlights that Obama's "plan" to sit back and see what happens with the $700 billion dollars before putting more information out about his economic stance is said to be a good one, therefore not tying up money that may or may not be there. However, the paper brought up that McCain's campaign has intensely criticized Obama for doing this because he is said to not making critical decisions in a time of crisis. Instead, McCain, as the Post highlights, waffles on every comment made about the crisis and whether or not he would vote for the Wall Street bail out by taking it back to Obama not making a definitive answer to the same question. Whether the bail out passes or not, the article highlights the definite surge for votes for Obama because of the economic times. The economy is one subject that Obama has a lead in and as long as this subject stays in the forefront of the media, I believe that Obama will keep the lead. For the first time in a few weeks, I haven't seen anything about Sara Palin on the front page of the Post. The article on the front page today only mentions her in the capacity that McCain won't let her answer any questions about the economy. Does this speak as to her experience on such things? Will Obama and McCain even out again if the economy is not issue #1 in the coming weeks? Only the media knows...

Top 5 Week of Sept. 8-14

1. Lipstick on the Pig Incedent
2. Democrats Launch a New "Lie Counter" Site
3. Clinton Campaigns for Obama in Ohio
4. Obama Breaks Fundraising Records
5. Palin's Mayoral Experiences

And don't forget the SNL Skit About Palin and Clinton!

Lipstick Jungle

If you've watched the news at all this week, you've heard about the "lipstick on a pig" comment by Barack Obama in which he was refering to the Republican party. This was blown entirely out of proportion, but indeed it was the main headline today on the Washington Post. This article harshly criticized McCain's campaign for picking at Obama's speech and saying that he was speaking about Gov. Palin instead of the Republican party's failed policies. This article definitely leans to the left explaining that McCain promised a fair and honorable fight for the Whitehouse and then goes about highlighting things like Obama saying an age old phrase that could be taken as offensive. What he failed to tell everyone, though, is that he used the same exact expression when campaigning last year when he thought Hillary Clinton was going to be the Decmocratic contender for President, but the article points out that no one took it offensively then. McCain's campaign ads are just using the riducule to make the popular Gov. Palin out to be the victim. This, in theory, would make people on the fence angry that he would say such a thing about Palin and hopefully vote for McCain/Palin. Obama has come back to say that he has used this phrase multiple times, and even before Palin was on the scene, so whatever it is that McCain's campaign is trying to do, they should stop. In my opinion, aren't there more important things to focus on, yet again, besides lipstick on pigs? Here's the real clip from the rally...

GOP Enthusiastic About Palin

This morning, I looked at the top story on the Washionton Post website only to find an extensive article on how the Republicans are more than excited about McCain's choice for his Vice President, Sarah Palin. The news that she has a daughter who is 17 and pregnant has been quickly passed by for the most part with the claim that there is no such thing as a traditional family anymore (see my previous post). The article, though, started out rather neutral in my eyes, with the author speaking about how the GOP was getting excited about Palin's values, specifically her views on abortion. (She's pro-life all the way.) But toward the end, the article began to talk about how she might have picked up voters in Virginia, but there are still tons of people who decided to register to vote because of Obama and presumably will vote for him in November. One of the things that bothered me and was definitely spun was one quote that was pulled from an interview with a man in Surry, VA. After a few words with him about his enthusiasm about McCain's VP choice, he said "She's right good-looking -- that's all I need to know." Now, coming from a woman, I find that very offensive because that just means that it doesn't even matter what kind of politics that Palin agrees with or what she even stands for. Just as long as she looks good...that's what matters. I know that this quote was intentionally pulled out just to make people like me angry that just because there is a woman cantidate that she will pull more people if she was pretty. But on to less shallow things. More and more people have started to wonder with all of the enthusiasm for Palin, isn't it more of a Palin/McCain ticket instead of McCain/Palin? No one seems quite as excited whenever McCain steps out on stage, but when Palin comes out, there is a ceremonious roar from whatever crowd has shown up. The media has a lot to do with that though. There was so much of a to-do made over the VP nominations with McCain trailing Obama, the party needed a boost, and it looks like they may have gotten it. The Post, however has been constantly ridiculing the Republicans ever since the Convention started. But that would be expected seeing as they're left leaning. It should be interesting to see what the top story is tomorrow.

"Traditional" Family Up For Discussion

Picture perfect families are indeed a thing of the past or just for the lucky few percent that actually stay together for more than 15 years. The Palins are no different, or are they? The Washington Post's main article today in its Campaign 2008 section outlines that there isn't really any kind of "traditional" family anymore. Mom goes to work, Dad stays at home with the kids, kids have kids, kids live with grandparents, and the list goes on and on. That's something that I've definitely noticed since my parents are teachers and see all sorts of functional and dysfunctional families throughout their years in the school system. The Post, however, talks about the mission of both parties to send numerous shout outs and thank yous to their families to establish their family based values within the election. Also it discussed the variety of different types of families that are in this election from McCain, on his second marriage, to Palin, five kids and one pregnant one, to the Obamas, a generally "traditional" family if you will, to Biden, who is also on his second marriage only for different, more tragic reasons. Like most articles I've found in the Post so far, this one tends to be rather party neutral until you reach the end of the article. Of course, Palin's daughter Bristol will be brought up since she is only 17 years old and very pregnant. The article comments on the fact that if Republicans still are all for Palin and supportive of her daughter, it means that they therefore believe that God it is okay for all 17 year olds to have sex and become pregnant even though these are very against their party's core beliefs. They even highlight Bristol's pregnancy as what was used to be called a "shotgun wedding" which is sort of out of line in my opinion. They highlighted, in order to counter this, that Michelle Obama has a demanding career, which doesn't really counter the comments at all. They're trying to lean the news so it sounds like the Obamas are and were doing everything that they should have been doing while Palin's daughter was out getting pregnant. Not that I really agree with the way that Palin has potentially ignored her daughter's youth and not given her enough discipline to keep her from going out and getting pregnant at 17 years old, but give her a little bit of slack. Everyone's got some kind of skeleton in their closet.

First Lady Fashion...Newsworthy or Not?

As I mentioned in my last post, I'll be following the Washington Post throughout the exciting election. Today, however, the election took a back burner to Tropical Storm Hanna that hit and completely flooded most of Washington D.C. Although this was taking up most of the front page of the Post, I continued down to the "Campaign 2008" section of the paper only to find an in depth report about the first ladies and their fashion choices. Hmm. Now, I know that looks can help or hurt candidates, just look at what happened with the Kennedy/Nixon debate that was televised, however, I didn't really think that this was a very newsworthy article to be brought up when there are more in depth issues to be covered. What about new information on Sarah Palin, the new Republican VP? Why can't we see some kind of comparison about Obama and McCain's education plans? Well, of course, the answer is because we're too busy talking about Laura Bush's elegantly embroidered cream Oscar de la Renta suit that she wore at the convention!

After I continued into reading the article, though, I began to think a little bit more deeply about the candidates' wives fashion choices. As the article outlines, Michelle Obama has donned clothing made by a native Chicago designer that isn't very well known. In a way, this shows that she is loyal to the area from which she came out of her political shell. Her style is very much more relaxed and hip than that of Cindy McCain, who has been found wearing suits, harsher fabrics, and more structured looks. But these fashion choices are also in line with their husband's party and visions. Republicans are known for being the conservative party, which goes well with the completely covered suits and structured dresses with more conservative color choices, like the mustard one seen above, whereas the democrats are more liberal and more into change, which agrees with Michelle Obama's more relaxed, free flowing fabrics and outstanding color choices like bright purples.

I sort of threw away my opinion about this subject because I wouldn't think it would matter, but what about all of the women out there that just care enough about fashion to say that they wouldn't vote for a candidate that dressed in a certain way or wasn't up to the minute in fashion trends. Unfortunately, there are people in the world that base important decisions on things like these. Women specifically can be very judgemental about fashion sense and appearance, especially in the great United States. It just shows how carefully thought went into the fashion choices of Cindy and Michelle, because you never know who will be looking. Obviously someone is paying attention if the black and white dress that Michelle wore on talk show The View completely sold out. Maybe these ladies' intricately detailed fashion senses will help to win votes for their husbands, and maybe not, but the issues should still be discussed as a little bit more important than the designer of Sarah Palin's most recent suit.