Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday

Over the past several weeks, there has been so much going on throughout the Presidential campaigns. It's hard to imagine that in just a few days, it'll all be over (hopefully). There have been several interesting issues that have emerged within the news media about these eager politicians, however, this week has been largely subdued. I'm not sure whether this is because McCain seems to be dimming and Obama's "poll surge" is taking effect, or maybe it's just because the Post is an inherantly Democratic paper. But either way you turn it, there really wasn't too much interesting news this week. The Post just reinforced their love of Obama by running just about every article on the front page on him, from a mother and son team that have teamed up to unite their generations and others to vote for Obama, to an article about an assasination plan that was foiled. The Post has really lightened up on McCain in the past few weeks and has just chosen to highlight everything that Obama has been doing and as polls reflect, instead of picking on McCain. This choice might tend to influence readers to look at what Obama stands for without even considering McCain and his policies because Obama's are so readily available and highlighted within the articles. It's hard to tell how many people will be influenced by the media, especially the Washington Post, but the outcome of the election will tell something on Tuesday.


Top 5
1. Obama Assasination Attempt
2. Obama Infomercial and Effect
3. Mother/Son Obama Team
4. Democrats Leading in Polls by Large Margins
5. Palin the Diva

Heartwarming Tale

The main article today in the A section of the Washington Post was an interest piece about how Obama is improving conditions for black people in America. The interview piece was done about a mother and her son as they worked on the Obama campaign and talked about how the mother didn't really know if the generation that her son belonged to, college age kids, really understood the impact that Obama could have as far as equal rights. At one point in the article she says that now she could tell her son that he really could do anything he put his mind to without anything being in his way, even running for and becoming the President of the United States of America. Although this was a very heartwarming and interesting piece on how Obama is bringing Americans together for a united cause, I think it's interesting that they put it on the front page and that they don't highlight things like these about McCain. In the last few weeks, particularly, they have proven their allegiance to Obama and the Democratic Party by running articles about what good Obama is doing whereas what kind of damage McCain and Palin will do and is doing. Although I feel like the piece was good and well written, the only bad things it said either about Obama or the campaign in general was what the mother thought about younger people taking over the campaign and not really understanding certain courtesies that her generation is used to. Nothing criticized their campaign nor compared it to McCain's which shows that they, although they have openly admitted their endorsement for Obama, are in fact biased to some extent.

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.

Split GOP

Today's main article in the Washington Post is about how McCain's campaign is attempting to distance itself from President Bush. The campaign has been attempting to do this, apparently without much result from the way the article was putting it, for a long time since every ad that Obama has placed out has highlighted how close they were in both policy and relationship. Finally in the last debate, McCain's big triumphant line was to say that he wasn't President Bush and if Obama wanted to run against him, he should have done it four years earlier. The article in the Post though, seems to rip on what kind of Republican party that people can see now. It's split between the people who do and don't approve of President Bush. The article highlights that one of McCain's biggest weakenesses is "pulling his campaign out from beneath the shadow of a president whose approval ratings have reached historic lows." This makes the true republicans wonder just how loyal John McCain is to what they all stand for and how different that he will be compared to the current president that they might think is doing a fantastic job. In this respect, the Post article feels as though there is a gap between the Pro-Bush Republicans and the Republicans who might feel a little lost or disconnected from their party because of their problems with Bush. The article does point out that Obama might have the lead just because he is in no way associated with the current President and that things need to change completely.

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

It's Official.

Today, in the Washington Post's Editorial section, the main article read that the Post would officially be endorsing Barack Obama for President. What a surprise! Not. After many articles on their main pages as well as many more on the back pages and online of lashing out at McCain's ideals, strategies, and campaign in general, is anyone really surprised at this liberal leaning newspaper going for Obama? I'm sure not. I am surprised that it took this long for them to claim that it is who they would support when they were obviously not going to endorse McCain. Either way, it has come out. The main stories on the Post's front page today were about the Debate on Wednesday and how it effected both of the candidates' followings. Obama was steadily cool throughout the debate, and McCain has been highlighted as being disrespectful, anxious, and tense. Virginia is now looking like it's a battleground state, which is something that hasn't happened for a very long time and the Posts' blame is put on McCain's performances in the three debates as well as his Vice Presidential pick, which is questioned more and more each day by independents and undecided voters. With Ohio and Virginia, two major states in this election now, being in the forefront of the election coverage now, in the next three weeks are vital to both candidates' success and faliures.

Obama and McCain Reveal Economic Plans

Now that people expect more of the candidates as far as fixing the broken economy that we have today, they have released more detailed plans about what they wish to do for the economy if they are elected President. On Washington Post's website, they featured Obama's $60 billion plan in the first part of the day and eluded to McCain's proposal to be announced in the coming hours. When he finally did announce it, they not only had an article posted right away about exactly what he wanted to do, but spun it in a particular fashion. The Post claimed in it's first and second articles that appeared on it's main page that McCain's economic plan would pretty much only benefit seniors at this point and not much of the rest of the country, which would lead the reader to believe that it is not the correct choice for our country because more people than seniors need help in these hard economic times. Although this is how the article was written, that doesn't mean that that is what his real economic plan entails. Unless readers challenge this site and look for more research, they will automatically assume that this is all his plan will do, whereas they built Obama's plan up and said it was a great one, even if it is more expensive than one would think it should be. But the paper took the point of view on Obama's that you have to invest a little bit into it to get anything out of the situation. It's just amazing how quickly they have something bashing McCain's plan when Obama's plan is slightly risky as well, but they don't spend time evaluating it as much because it's a liberal leaning paper. I didn't notice it as much in the first part of this analysis, however the closer we get to the election, the more and more liberally leaning the paper seems to become. With only a few weeks left in the elections, there will surely be more bashing and boosting to be had.

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.

"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.