R&L 2008 Election Blog

Hillary Clinton’s Loss is a Victory for Women and Power in America

By Nichola D. Gutgold

Hillary Clinton's campaign for president started when she ran for senate. Though it wasn't the official start of her presidential campaign it was the moment when most Americans, and rhetorical scholars realized: "She's serious; she does want to run for office, and maybe she won't stop with the senate. Maybe she wants to be president." And of course, we all know, that yes, Hillary Clinton would like to be President of the United States.

Given America's very nervous relationship with women and power and the Hillary hating that has practically been a national pastime since Hillary Clinton became first lady, no one should have expected that her presidential bid, and all the images that a media obsessed nation could provide, would be less than provocative.

There has been non-stop commentary on Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid on the Internet, late night television and on the news and parody-news shows. Some was clearly sexist (The Facebook Group “Hillary stop running for President and make me a sandwich”); some that was cruel (Rush Limbaugh’s aging woman remark); Some that was hilariously funny (Saturday Night Live bits); and some that was serious and important (the nuances of her healthcare reform; her stance on the Iraq war; the economy). All the commentary forced us to think a lot about how we feel about women-- especially a former first lady that has been called “The Lady Macbeth of Little Rock”-- who makes a bid to be the leader of the free world. Everything from the necklines of her clothing (Cleavage-gate); and her laugh, (The Clinton Cackle); the Apple-computer commercial inspired homage; The (alleged) Cry; the post-S.C. primary where Bill Clinton compared Obama to Jesse Jackson; The Bosnia Trip Exaggeration; and the Political Cartoons (one most recently that had her searching for delegates on Mars). In a campaign season teeming with symbolism and imagery and firsts, there was no shortage of ways to interpret the presidential bid of Hillary Clinton. And it lives on, because everyone has You Tube immortality.

The day of Hillary Clinton’s presidential announcement arrived on January 20, 2007. Seated on a stylish sofa in a well appointed room, the former first lady and Senator of New York invited Americans to "have a conversation." She promised that her bid was serious and that she was "in to win." Well, we could have predicted that the tension between those wanting to support Hillary Clinton and those wanting to criticize
her would be intense.

Catalyst, a group that studies women’s economic advancement, notes the double bind of women leaders. In the report, the oldest stereotypes are revealed again in the newest research: “When women act in gender-consistent ways—that is, in a cooperative, relationship-focused manner—they are perceived as ‘too soft’ a leader….When women act in gender-inconsistent ways—that is, when they act authoritatively, show ambition, and focus on the task—they are viewed as “too tough.” …they might be acting leader-like, but not lady-like. Hillary Clinton had a tough job to counter the double bind of being a woman leader. Perhaps especially for one who was First Lady first.

We must not forget for a moment the historical significance of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. She navigated a difficult gender terrain that directly confronted the challenges that women have faced in their bids for elective office. John McCain noted: “I have great respect for her tenacity and courage. The media often overlooked how compassionately she spoke to the concerns and dreams of millions of Americans, and she deserves a lot more appreciation than she sometimes received. As the father of three daughters, I owe her a debt for inspiring millions of women to believe there is no opportunity in this great country beyond their reach.” Barack Obama noted: “Senator Hillary Clinton has made history not just because she’s a woman who has done what no woman has done before, but because she is a leader who inspired millions of Americans with her strength, her courage, and her commitment to the causes that brought us here tonight.” Indeed, as the first woman in American history to compete so closely for the nomination for president, Hillary Clinton has come closer to shattering the glass ceiling than any woman before her, including Margaret Chase Smith, Shirley Chisholm, Pat Schroeder, Elizabeth Dole and Carol Moseley Braun. And 18 million votes later she didn’t win the nomination, but what she won is a victory for women in America that extends far beyond one presidential cycle. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, by being seen and heard in their history making campaigns have likely inspired one of our children with her phrase: “See, you can be anything you want to be.” Sometimes not winning still offers a grand prize.

Nichola D. Gutgold is associate professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State Lehigh Valley and author of Paving the Way for Madam President (Lexington Books, 2006) and Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News (Lexington Books, 2008).

Obama and the South

by Charles S. Bullock, III

The South, which for generations served as the base for the Democratic Party, has now been solidly in the GOP column for most of the last 40 years, largely in presidential elections. In only three of the last ten presidential elections have more than one southern state voted for the Democratic presidential nominee. When Democrats get shut out of the states of the old Confederacy, they must win 70 percent of the electors from the rest of the nation to capture the White House. The Democratic road to the White House becomes smoother if they can take some states from the “Solid Republican South” thereby reducing the share of the rest of the nation they must win.

Barack Obama’s best prospects this year are Virginia and Florida. The Sunshine State has been closely contested in each of the last two presidential elections and will likely be so again in 2008. Florida’s diverse electorate that includes many who have come from other parts of the country helped reelect Bill Clinton and might back Obama.

Democrats have won Virginia’s last two gubernatorial elections. Senator Jim Webb ended George Allen’s presidential ambitions in 2006, and the Old Dominion seems poised to replace retiring Senator John Warner (R) with Mark Warner (D) this fall. Democrats also managed to take back control of the state Senate last year for the first time since 1993. Partisan changes emanating out from Washington may make Obama the first Democrat since Lyndon Johnson to carry Virginia.

Even if Obama fails to carry a single southern state, his efforts this year can help his party rebound from a series of weak performances extending back to at least 1994, when Democrats lost control of the South's House and Senate delegations. Strong Democratic turnout might help some marginal members hold on to congressional seats. Republicans had hoped to recapture seats held by Tom DeLay (TX), Mark Foley (FL), and Charles Taylor (NC), but lost in 2006. They also hoped to retain the Florida seat that Vern Buchanan won by just a few hundred votes in a contested election. Democrats may win all of these seats if Obama inspires additional Democrats to go to the polls.

Other Democrats like Georgia’s John Barrow and Jim Marshall, who represent districts with sizable black populations, may be able to breathe easier. In 2006 these members of Congress won reelection by fewer than 2,000 votes. The Democrat whose reelection to the Senate seems most precarious, Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu, might be another beneficiary of an enthusiastic response to the Obama candidacy.

Heightened Democratic turnout may have similar beneficiaries in southern legislatures. In states that have been trending Republican the drift may be reversed. In states where Republicans have now taken control of the legislative branch, Democrats may succeed in displacing some Republicans.

The only problem in the scenario set forth above comes if Obama’s candidacy stimulates an equal or greater reaction among conservative voters. A conservative backlash–-which did not develop in the special congressional elections recently won by Democrats in Louisiana and Mississippi—might offset the increases in Democratic registration

CHARLES S. BULLOCK, III, is the Richard B. Russell Professor of Political Science and Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Georgia. He is co-editor, with Mark J. Rozell, of The New Politics of the Old South: An Introduction To Southern Politics, Third Edition (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007) and co-author, with Ronald Keith Gaddie, of Elections to Open Seats in the U.S. House (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000).

The Media’s Rush to Push Hillary Clinton Offstage

By Elizabeth A. Skewes

Yes, it’s been a long nomination season for the Democrats. And with Hillary Clinton’s victory in West Virginia, it’s likely to continue, at least until early June.

And yes, the drawn-out battle between Clinton and Barack Obama for the presidential nomination may make it harder for the eventual nominee to gear up for the fall campaign against Republican nominee John McCain. After all, he’s been the de facto party nominee since Super Tuesday in February, so he’s been able to fundraise and focus on the fall election.

But does that really mean Clinton should drop out of the race to make the path to the White House easier for Obama, as some Democrats have argued? And more to the point, have the media made it harder for Clinton to succeed in this contest by focusing so much attention on the calls for Clinton to make a graceful exit?

The answer to the first question is one for the partisans to debate, although Time magazine this week declared Obama the winner … so clearly the contest must be over.

But it’s the second question that is the more interesting one. Since late February, news organizations—often citing “Obama supporters” or “leading Democrats”—have been talking about the idea that Clinton should drop her bid for the nomination so that Democrats can rally behind Obama.

Even with nearly 1,200 delegates still at stake and 16 nominating contests to go before the March 4 primaries in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont, the media weren’t wondering whether Clinton could pull it off, but how soon she should exit the race.

And, as research has shown, how the media cast an election can have a significant impact on how news consumers perceive it. The repetition of the message across media markets – the Boston Globe on Feb. 28 talking about leading Democrats urging Clinton to drop out, the Washington Times on March 22 saying Clinton is being advised to drop her bid, Tribune News Service on March 28, the Wall Street Journal on March 29 – inevitably has had an impact.

The media have long had a role in the nomination process. Thomas Patterson, in Out of Order, argues that the road to the White House now runs through the nation’s newsrooms, and getting traction in the media early on in the election—even before the primaries begin—is critical to fundraising and poll ratings. Just ask John Edwards.

But in this year’s election, the media seem to be expanding their influence beyond the pre-primary season and into the nomination itself. Now this may be an artifact of a close contest. The 2004 race didn’t see the media pushing anyone to leave the race, but Bush was an incumbent president, and Kerry was the last person still standing after Super Tuesday.

Still, there seems to be a rush to push Clinton offstage, to “tidy up” the race so that there’s one Democrat and one Republican, and so that the narrative can fall into familiar rhythms again. But democracy is messy, and even though it’s inconvenient for the press, perhaps we should simply let the process work the way it’s designed to and let the voters decide.

Elizabeth A. Skewes is assistant professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the author of Message Control: How News is Made on the Presidential Campaign Trail.

Political Dialogue in the 2008 Campaign—More of the Same?

By Carl R. Ramey

In a New York Times Op-Ed this week, Elizabeth Edwards, fresh off the campaign trail herself, blames America’s mass media for debasing the political dialogue in this year’s presidential primaries. Her message, a common one, is that candidates have serious intentions, but they go unreported (or under-reported) because our media messengers are more enamored with campaign strategy, polling and personal peccadilloes. The implication is that if only our mass media would act more responsibly, treating issues more seriously and in greater depth, our political dialogue would be magically transformed.

For years, media critics and academic scholars have railed against the tendency of popular media to obsess over the horse-race element of political campaigns, while ignoring more important information about a candidates’ priorities, policies and principles. While the criticism is legitimate, it must be said that what is important to voters is not always conveyed or discerned by focusing on policy, to the exclusion of what candidates actually say and do. For example, who would argue that assessing Hillary Clinton’s integrity, Barack Obama’s authenticity and John McCain’s temperament are not at least as relevant as examining their positions on energy or the estate tax? And, such qualities are usually measured by weighing personal conduct.

Nevertheless, fundamental changes have occurred that threaten the health of our political dialogue as never before. First, the media environment of 2008 is fully 24/7, with the information flow virtually endless and the noise level wildly amplified. It is a YouTube and cell phone video world where every candidate’ s action or reaction is subject to instant viewing and analysis. Second, the contemporary proliferation of media sources competing to hold onto highly fragmented audiences and advertisers significantly dilutes political content on many outlets. Mushrooming media sources chasing the same political stories with reduced staff and dwindling revenues simply runs counter to producing serious journalism. Third, the different ways in which modern political campaigns are conducted, combined with the different ways American audiences now obtain political information, vastly complicate the problem.

Yes, commercial television, cable networks and radio talk shows continue to minimize meaningful discussions of serious public issues. But we should not delude ourselves into thinking that, if only those media sources would allow more time for serious discussions, our political dialogue would suddenly be uplifted. That is because, even if popular media could be reformed in this fashion, little would change unless the tendencies and habits of both political candidates and American audiences were also to change, a likelihood of near herculean proportions.

The sad truth is that political candidates and their handlers typically prefer the slick, shallow and safe sound-bite over extended, in-depth conversations. And, like McCain, Clinton and Obama in the current campaign, they repeatedly pander to the electorate—shifting positions on trade, jobs and tax relief, depending on what primary contest is at stake—instead of addressing issues directly; believing, perhaps legitimately, that revealing too many uncomfortable specifics might represent political suicide. For example, even though Obama has the weight of evidence on his side in opposing a gas tax holiday this summer, he could easily be “buried” with the issue by Clinton and McCain, both of whom are supporting the idea by ignoring facts and appealing to voters’ momentary distress.

Another sad truth is that, despite more in-depth coverage of political issues by leading national newspapers, weekly news magazines, public issue periodicals and public broadcasting—all of which are experiencing losses not gains—most Americans seem to prefer the speeded-up, less reflective, headline treatment of those issues found on commercial TV, cable and the Internet. Younger Americans, particularly, look to the Internet and satirical news features like the “Daily Show” for a quick political fix.

If, as critics claim, our dominant mass media are largely to blame for the deterioration of our political dialogue, why do the more serious media outlets—and there are still many—not attract more stable audiences, catching at least a few of the readers and viewers retreating from the political pabulum served by commercial television, cable and talk radio? Part of the problem is that, even as we are threatened from the outside world as never before, we live in a society where the dominant lifestyles have become less compatible with the mission of serious newspapers, magazines and broadcast journalism. In short, the problem of an increasingly dysfunctional political dialogue goes deeper than just indicting some of our most prominent, pernicious media sources.

Carl R. Ramey is a retired communications lawyer and the author of Mass Media Unleashed: How Washington Policymakers Shortchanged the American Public (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007)

The ABC News Debate: The Questioners Take Center Stage

By Stephen J. Farnsworth

Normally, post-debate analysis focuses on the presidential candidates and what they said. But following last week’s ABC News Pennsylvania debate the most intense scrutiny was on the questioners – Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos – not on Hillary Clinton, not on Barack Obama.

The nation’s editorial pages and many bloggers attacked the two reporters for devoting roughly 40 minutes to a rehashing of personal matters about the candidates: including the much-discussed Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the alleged snipers facing down the former First Lady in the Balkans, who wears and doesn’t wear a flag pin, and the infamous “bitter-gate” remark. The two also tried to open up a new scandal area, observing that Bill Ayers, one of Obama’s supporters used to belong to the Weather Underground, a violent terrorist group from the 1960s.

For the hundreds of thousands of Americans struggling to pay the gasoline bill and worried about losing their homes, their jobs or their health insurance, ABC News delivered a breathtaking performance. The ABC debate debacle is a reminder of how often candidate events that have more audience participation – like the Democratic Party’s YouTube forum and the various “town-meeting” style debates – can be more informative than when journalists dominate the questioning. ABC News’s turn away from issues may also help explain why the network news audience continues to shrink.

Call it mass-media myopia. Too often, reporters are obsessed with the sports of politics, obsessing about who is ahead and what can be done strategically to change the dynamics of the campaign. Data collected over the past five presidential elections cycles by the Center for Media and Public Affairs demonstrate that network television routinely follows the “horse-race” aspects of the campaign and provides only limited coverage of more substantial matters, like issues. Surveys show that voters consistently say they want more serious, issue-based news than they get during presidential campaigns.

With their scandal quest, the reporters were previewing the general election, when Republican activists are likely to raise similar matters to try to derail the campaign of whichever senator becomes the Democratic presidential nominee. Attacks by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth on Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) four years ago remain fresh in media minds.

Even so, the amount of time the ABC reporters focused on scandal news was excessive. More time for policy matters in that debate would have been a great asset to voters, particularly since the home-mortgage crisis, trade concerns, and rising consumer prices for food and gasoline have all increased in severity during recent weeks. A March 19-22 Pew Research Center Poll, for example, found that 56 percent of those surveyed said the national economy was in poor shape, as compared to 28 percent in a January survey. Nearly half of those polled listed rising prices as their top economic concern.

Unfortunately, the ABC News questions revealed that some reporters remain more interested in talking than in listening.

Stephen J. Farnsworth is associate professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington and co-author, with S. Robert Lichter, of The Nightly News Nightmare: Television’s Coverage of U.S. Presidential Elections, 1988-2004, Second Edition (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007) and The Mediated Presidency: Television News and Presidential Governance (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).

McCain, Obama, and the Reform Argument

By Steven E. Schier

Much of the coverage in the political media this year fails to address widespread public concerns about politics. The media talk is often all about issues. The tone is one of constant conflict and squabbles.

Both are big turnoffs to many in the public. The candidate who wins the White House in 2008 will employ a way of communicating with voters that the political media often misses. So far, John McCain and Barack Obama have done the best job of communicating to voters in this way.

Call it the “reform argument.” Ross Perot milked surprising success from it in 1992. The public hates political disagreements and squabbling, desiring instead a government by a trustworthy set of guardians who won’t shove complex policy substance in their faces. Citizens don’t make time for much issue content and hate political fights.

These conclusions come from a landmark book depicting how the American public views their government: Stealth Democracy by John R. Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. Employing a detailed survey they commissioned from Gallup and focus groups in four American cities scattered in all regions of the country, they discovered that citizens view politics in ways media and political elites wouldn’t recognize.

First, Americans hate political disagreement, and aren’t much interested in policy substance. So much of politics as usual is a snooze for them.

Second, they are most concerned that political leaders are granting unfair advantage to special interests in corrupt ways. To the public, special interests—defined as interests that are not their own—are all bad. The public views campaign contributions as direct payments into politician’s pockets. Washington, to them, is a cesspool of illicit funds.

Most candidates talk abstractly about policies, raise big campaign money, and fight over issues. To the extent they become deeply identified with such behavior, they fit the negative public stereotype of what is wrong with politics.

Instead, as Perot did, they need to stress their separation from politics as usual, their desire for process solutions like more direct democratic institutions, campaign finance reform and strengthened lobbying regulation. And they need to have “walked the walk” on these issues over their careers.

It helps if you are wealthy enough to self-fund your campaign. Then, in the public mind, you can’t be bought and your spiel is likely to be viewed as more sincere. Michael Bloomberg, take note.

Hibbing and Theiss-Morse find that the public wants to be governed by ENSIDS—
(Empathetic Non-Self-Interested Decision makers). With ENSIDS guarding governmental institutions, citizens can feel comfortable paying less attention to politics, which is a widespread desire.

It’s no coincidence that two presidential leaders with the most ENSID-like qualities are prospering this year. John McCain, Mr. “straight talk” and a fervent campaign finance reformer, seems headed for the GOP nomination. Barack Obama, new to Washington and sporting the freshness of an uncorrupted agent of “change,” is faring well in his pursuit of the Democratic nomination.

The reformer label—Mr. or Ms. ENSID—is an invaluable asset in contemporary electoral politics. It’s time more reporters, candidates and consultants recognized that.

Steven E. Schier is Congdon Professor of Political Science at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.

C-SPAN's Window into the Political Process

For most of the contemporary era, election campaigning was dominated by a symbiotic relationship between candidates attempting to broadcast a message and highly controlled media outlets picking and choosing what they would consider as news.. Politics became a game of competing sound bite initiatives in which the candidates hoped to capture voters and television networks hope to titillate and draw in audiences. By 2004, the average candidate sound bite had shrunk to about 7 seconds, about the amount of time it takes to say, “Hello, my name is….” While sound bite politics is still part of the process, a number of new players have entered the arena and changed the calculus. The change was not cataclysmic, but rather gradual.

C-SPAN Founder, Brian Lamb, built on his experiences as a military public affairs offices, Senate staff member and journalist to come to the conclusion that being limited to the three television networks failed to capture the full flavor of politics in Washington. He felt that the public deserved and wanted more voice and more detail.

When C-SPAN (The Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network) entered the scene in 1979, it bucked the trend toward sound bite coverage and committed itself to full coverage of congressional sessions and later public policy forums and candidate speech. As much as possible, viewers gained full access to events as if they were in the audience. Going a step beyond the formal even itself, cameras were turned on during the preparations and for the wind down after an event captured the non-scripted aspects of the endeavor. Later C-SPAN would begin following candidates around as they participated in traditionally uncovered campaign activities such as “meet and greet sessions,” coffee klatches, and pep talks to volunteers. By seeing the entire event, the C-SPAN audience gained the context with which to better understand issues and measure the mettle of candidates. Such coverage “caught” candidates such as Joe Biden in duplicitous statements undermining their campaigns, while others such as Bill Clinton used the new vehicle for broadcasting their capabilities. C-SPAN tapes have become the repository of political statements of politicians for the last 30 years, making duplicity more apparent.

As technology changed, C-SPAN invested heavily in web-based distribution of content, pioneering information on demand (www.c-span.org). Now interested citizens could easily find and view full events mentioned in brief form by the mainstream media. For the first time, viewers could see campaign commercials for candidates vying for various levels of office around the country. C-SPAN archived recent events for immediate viewing and supported a long-term archive of all its programming. Years before YouTube began archiving sound bites for viewing on demand, C-SPAN made the entire event accessible.

The extended 2008 primary season gave C-SPAN the opportunity to become the political “network of record.” Few people could keep up with all the events debates and speeches. While the major networks picked up events such as Mitt Romney’s defense of his Mormon faith and Barack Obama’s repudiation of the extreme comments of his minister, C-SPAN was there for less publicized events. Rather than giving snippets of victory and concession speeches, they covered them in their entirety. C-SPAN viewers saw Hillary Clinton give a speech on “How to Caucus” to Iowa Democrats, Barack Obama speaking before the Black audience of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention, while John McCain is seen speaking at venues as diverse as the Anti-Defamation League and the National Rifle Association.

C-SPAN’s website is also a very useful portal for a wide range of audio, video and text resources on politics and elections. C-SPAN’s call-in programs provide an interesting measure of public sentiment on a day to day basis.

C-SPAN is not for everyone. The C-SPAN “junkies” have an atypically high interest in politics and public affairs. In the political world, C-SPAN viewers are enviable targets for political campaigns, since they vote, contribute money, talk to their friends and volunteer in campaigns. C-SPAN provides them a largely unedited window on the political process.

Steve Frantzich is Professor of Political Science at the U.S. Naval Academy. Two of his recent books are: Founding Father: How Brian Lamb Changed American Politics, and Citizen Democracy: Political Activism in a Cynical Age