Campaigns & Elections

Good Morning America's Jon Karl on Tuesday characterized a Republican senatorial candidate in Alaska as a "hard-line, Tea Party conservative" and someone who "has also been known to attract assault weapon-baring weapon supporters at his political rallies." He added, "In a recent interview on ABC's Top Line, [candidate Joe Miller] suggested that unemployment benefits are unconstitutional." [MP3…

During the 3 p.m. MSNBC news hour Monday, anchor Chris Jansing asked the question and hosted an expert who supplied the seemingly desired answer. The question: Could President Obama make a mid-term comeback similar to President Reagan in 1982? The answer: Absolutely.The two discussed the similarities of the situations faced by the presidents, and seemed to conclude that if the economy turns…

Opening Saturday's CBS Early Show, co-host Chris Wragge proclaimed: "Image Problem: The President is on vacation and under fire. From the jobless numbers to the Mosque mess – why is the man with the soaring rhetoric having such a hard time getting his message across?" The headline on screen during the later segment read: "Image Issues; Can Obama's Team Bring Campaign Magic Back?"Introducing the…

"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not."And it’s not surprising then they get…

The co-host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Joe Scarborough, strongly believes certain networks would play the race card big time against southern Republican Haley Barbour, if he runs for President in 2012.[see related post with video here]Scarborough predicted on Thursday that if the Mississippi governor is the Republican Presidential nominee in 2012, the media would smear him as a racist white man…

Every time the question about President Barack Obama's faith is brought up, the wizards of smart in the mainstream media get up in arms about "right-wingers" or "tea partiers" perpetuating those allegations. But is it possible that by devoting so much attention to these issues of Obama's faith and his citizenship, the media are creating the very feeding frenzy they're appalled by? On CNN's Aug.…

Speaking to conservative commentator Ann Coulter on Thursday's CBS Early Show, fill-in co-host Erica Hill seemed to hope the Ground Zero mosque controversy had run its course: "Does it go away or does this continue through November?" Hill's question to Coulter followed fellow guest, Democratic strategist Tanya Acker, ranting: "...the notion that in the United States of America we would deny…

On Wednesday's Rick's List, CNN's Rick Sanchez returned to his obsession with Fox News, stating that the network "obviously tends to lean way, way, way to the right." He did acknowledge this his competitors at MSNBC "tends to sway to the left," but went on to extend his "I play it down the middle" label of himself to his entire liberal network: "We happen to be in the middle, and that's the way…

Gee, I wonder which network Joe had in mind . . . Joe Scarborough likes Haley Barbour.  But he doesn't like the "optics" of the southern governor running for president against Barack Obama.  Scarborough's worried that "certain networks" would "maul" the man Scarborough referred to as "Boss Hogg." [H/t reader Ray R.]Interestingly, both the Politico's Jim VandeHei and Tina Brown of the Daily…

Following in the footsteps of The Washington Post, Wednesday's New York Times put Sharron Angle on the front page, pushing strongly on Harry Reid's notion that her extremism and ineptitude are working in Reid's favor. Reporter Adam Nagourney played up Republican pessimism:  Since Ms. Angle won, her campaign has been rocked by a series of politically intemperate remarks and awkward efforts to…

[Update, 8:10 pm EDT: The original version of this article identified Roland Martin as a "black talk radio host." He no longer has his own radio talk show. He is still a CNN contributor, columnist syndicated by Creators Syndicate, and analyst for for the Tom Joyner Morning Show, according to his own website.] On Tuesday's Anderson Cooper 360, CNN contributor Roland Martin strongly pushed for the…

George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday again focused on GOP reaction to the Ground Zero mosque, challenging Karl Rove as to whether Republicans such as Newt Gingrich will "undercut the work" President Obama has been doing to reach out to moderate Muslims. Stephanopoulos highlighted Republican officials "who worry that the kind of rhetoric we've been hearing from people like Newt Gingrich is going to…

The Washington Post hyped the news on the front of Wednesday's Style section that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, "triggering swift criticism from Democrats that a contribution of that magnitude casts a shadow on his media properties, particularly Fox News." In paragraph 13, on page C-10, this apparent outrage of Republican…

CNN's Jessica Yellin, a one-time "prominent feminist activist," helped forward the talking points of the pro-abortion lobby by devoting part of a segment on Tuesday's Rick's List to EMILY List's new anti-Sarah Palin ad. Yellin aired their left-wing accusations against the Republican and her endorsed candidates without providing the other side and/or fact-checking them [audio clips available here…