Campaigns & Elections

Heaping praise on moderate Republican Rep. Tom Davis (Va.), the Washington Post devoted not one but two articles in the January 31 paper to the congressman. The Post lauded Davis for his centrism, but particularly for angering the Virginia GOP's conservative base. Yet left unmentioned was any analysis suggesting moderation was what felled his wife's 2007 state senate reelection campaign. Staff…

"For his part, Obama appears to view Hillary as a thug who will say anything to win." -- ABC's Dan Harris, GMA, 01-31-08.Gangsta rappers for Hillary? Could be. After all, Barack Obama apparently sees her as a "thug." At least that's what ABC's Dan Harris said on today's Good Morning America.ROBIN ROBERTS: And that brings us now to the Democrats. It's their turn tonight. Whatever your political…

How is John McCain not a conservative? Let Joe Scarborough count the ways. The Morning Joe host thundered out a bill of particulars today that was nothing less than an indictment of McCain's lack of conservative credentials.It was Mika Brzezinski's reference to Bob Novak's column of today, questioning McCain's conservatism, that sparked Scarborough's outburst. View video here.

Michael Medved has hurled the ultimate insult at Rush Limbaugh -- that he's acting like a liberal. According to Medved, Rush is thinking with his emotions, not his mind, when it comes to his criticism of of John McCain.McCain supporter Medved appeared on Tucker Carlson's MSNBC show this evening.View video here.

NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr is torn over the two Democratic front runners Sens. Clinton and Obama. This according to a weekly newsletter from Politics and Prose, an independent bookstore in Washington, D.C. As taken from the January 30 e-mail newsletter (emphasis mine; h/t Carter Wood):

"Nightline" co-host Terry Moran spent the day with Barack Obama on Tuesday and continued his habit of spouting talking points for Democratic candidates. This included telling viewers that Obama's campaign revolved around "connections" and then elaborating, "That's what is at the heart of Obama's politics, the notion that divisions are artificial and can be overcome by an act of will and of…

People who oppose Hillary Clinton's presidential aspirations do so primarily out of sexism. That's at least how "The View" co-host Joy Behar sees it. Discussing NOW’s attack on Senator Kennedy for supporting Obama over Clinton on today's show, Behar implied anti-Clinton forces are after her because she’s a woman."They’re piling up on Hillary from every, every corner, including Maureen Dowd, women…

The presidential campaigns of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) were both derailed yesterday in Florida. But in covering the story, the AP was considerably more morose about Edwards's train wreck than Giuliani's (h/t NB reader Joe Loiacono).Let's look at the AP coverage. First the Edwards write-up by Nedra Pickler (emphasis mine):

Can a picture be worth a thousand tears? Behold Chris Matthews in the depths of despair, contemplating the prospect that Obama-the-dreamer has lost to Hillary the machine candidate. Schmoozing with Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on today's Morning Joe, Matthews had analogized Obama to Mozart the genius while casting Hillary in the role of the workmanlike but uninspired Salieri.View video here.

You don’t see this every day. In a fierce Maryland fight for a majority-black seat in Congress, Rep. Al Wynn’s campaign filed a complaint against Donna Edwards, the leftist challenger that he barely beat in the last election cycle. The Washington Post reported he said in a conference call with reporters: "There seems to be a vast, dare I say, left-wing conspiracy designed to circumvent campaign…

Covering Hillary's tricked-up "victory" event for a Dem Florida primary that was not supposed to be contested, even MSNBC co-anchor Keith Olbermann eventually got bored and pulled away. But before he did, the junior senator from New York began to lay out her plans for America. Though sheer ennui eventually drove MSNBC off, the network hung in for enough of Clinton's "victory" speech to give us a…