Campaigns & Elections

Morning Joe, in the person of Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist, took a victory lap this morning on the occasion of Donald Trump's impressive Super Tuesday victories. The theme of the opening half-hour: we told you so. Their point: from the day he announced his candidacy, the Morning Joe team took Trump seriously and said he could be a real factor. In contrast, the poobahs of…

As part of CBS’s hour-long special on Super Tuesday, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan remarked that, sadly, she “believe[s] we are seeing a great political party shatter before our eyes” with the rise of Donald Trump. Moments after fellow panelist Jamelle Bouie of Slate blamed the rise of Trump on “the fruit of a lot of backlash politics, a lot of resentment, racially and otherwise,”…

According to Chris Matthews during live Super Tuesday coverage, the Republicans will turn their “hate” of Barack Obama on Hillary Clinton with “no limit to what [Donald Trump] will say about her,” should the businessman be the nominee. Speaking of the GOP, the MSNBC host warned, “They can certainly build the Republican hatred that is already there for Obama, direct that now to Hillary Clinton.” 

Not long after Midnight Eastern time on Wednesday after Super Tuesday, CNN senior political commentator David Axelrod and senior political analyst Gloria Borger repeatedly lectured fellow panelist and former Ted Cruz communications director Amanda Carpenter by telling her that Cruz would be unable to best unite the Republican Party in November since he’s called Senate Majority Leader Mitch…

Appearing on ABC’s live Super Tuesday coverage, Ted Cruz openly mocked former Democratic operative turned journalist George Stephanopoulos. A skeptical Stephanopoulos questioned Cruz’s path to the nomination, despite his wins in Oklahoma and Texas: “Marco Rubio is staying in the race. John Kasich is staying in the race. Ben Carson is staying in the race.” 

NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt led the network’s prime time Super Tuesday coverage in which he twice attempted to promote the belief that voters should come to the realization that they have the opportunity to elect the first female president after electing the first African-American in 2008: “[E]ight years ago, we were talking about wow, we may see the first African-American President.…

With Donald Trump securing first-place wins in most primaries on Super Tuesday, MSNBC's Chris Matthews set about to cast Trump as the inevitable nominee and to paint the GOP as acting in an illegitimate fashion were it to attempt to thwart a Trump nomination should he head into Cleveland having won most state primaries. But as his guest Tom DeLay tried to explain, the rules dictate that the…

For many years now, the liberal media have lamented that our democracy is badly compromised by a rapacious band of  billionaires manipulating government policy and elections and frustrating the will of the people. Just four years ago, the networks became a megaphone for the “Occupy Wall Street” argument that the “99 percent” were tired of being dominated by the “One Percent.” So when Donald…

Speaking to Marco Rubio during CBS News’s Super Tuesday coverage, CBS This Morning co-host Charlie Rose knocked Rubio for attacking Trump in the lead up to his numerous victories across the country and insulting Trump voters by referring to their candidate as “a con artist.”

OK, so this isn't bias, but it is a funny little gaffe. Apparently New Jersey native Brian Williams thinks pulled pork is a Texas barbecue delicacy. It's not. Texas BBQ is known for beef brisket. For her part, fellow MSNBCer Rachel Maddow, who hails from California, politely corrected him.

MSNBC on Super Tuesday hyped John Kasich as the moderate hope, the only man occupying the “dignity lane.” Brian Williams touted the Ohio governor as bearing “the label as every Democrat’s favorite Republican in 2016.”  Analyst Nicolle Wallace said the Kasich campaign feels “like they are running their own race. And that is the only Republican campaign about which you could say that. They have not…

As Super Tuesday election results started to roll in, CNN’s Van Jones rejected any enthusiasm comparison between 2016 Hillary Clinton and then-candidate Barack Obama eight years ago. After Michael Smerconish noted that Clinton has a problem firing up voters, Van Jones shot back, “I just think with regard to Sanders, I don't think he's saying he has more enthusiasm than Barack Obama in 2008.” …

Less than an hour before polls closed in the first three states on Super Tuesday, CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley declared that it marked “likely the last chance for challengers to catch the frontrunners, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.”

I was going to write about how the Republican presidential campaign has become gutter politics, but given Donald Trump's horrid statements, the gutter would be a step up, because things have descended into the sewer.