Campaigns & Elections

After the 2012 campaign, liberal journalists swarmed around Republican Party chair Reince Priebus offering what was called an “autopsy” on every way Republicans failed, with a special emphasis on more outreach to minority voters. Democrats and their media enablers painted a picture of demographic doom for an aging white Republican base. Two years later, Republicans made dramatic gains among…

In a Tuesday article, Baltimore Sun media critic David Zurawik examined the reason behind Fox News beating every other TV news outlet in the ratings – including NBC, ABC and CBS – during November 4 midterm election coverage: "...it's time to think seriously about what that says about Fox, CNN, MSNBC, the state of network news today and the role TV plays or doesn't play in providing us with…

Latest dispatch from the "dissent is patriotic" is dead front: Howard Dean has accused those who don't share his political views of being "authoritarian people who fundamentally don't believe in democracy." Poor Howard, who declared the times to be very "frightening and disconcerting," made his astounding accusation on today's Up With Steve Kornacki while attempting to explain the Republican…

Early Friday morning, ABCNews.com published an exclusive article that unearthed a secret email listserv maintained by two of Hillary Clinton’s possible 2016 presidential campaign advisers that, among other things, allowed them to express their desires to “smite Republicans mafia-style” and “punish those voters.” With these emails now public, the question will be: Will any of ABC’s newscasts or…

Appearing on TBS's Conan Thursday night, NBC's Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd downplayed the big Republican wave in the midterm election: "...they didn't win because people said, 'We want to hire the Republicans.' Essentially this was an election of 'Well, alright, we're firing the Democrats'....I think the leadership knows that they have to prove that they can govern, that they're just not…

When it comes to political prognosticating, Chuck Todd in 2014 erred repeatedly as he imagined Democratic victories and Republican missteps with conservative legislation. On August 1, the Meet the Press host appeared on the Daily Rundown and speculated, "If November comes and goes and Democrats hold the Senate and break even in the House, I think we’re going to look back at the month of July as…

Paul Bedard of The Washington Examiner delivered the inevitable news: “The media’s kissing up to the Clinton family, expected once Hillary Clinton jumps into the 2016 presidential race, has already arrived, thanks to Katie Couric's fawning interview of former first daughter Chelsea." Couric opened with a wide smile, “A woman of the year, and I think it’s safe to say, probably a ‘Mom of the Year…

“Better late than never” is apparently the new motto of Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central's faux conservative, who said on Wednesday night's edition of The Colbert Report that one new member of the Republican “farm team” has claimed that Barack Obama is allegedly possessed by a demon even though he performed an exorcism to try and "drive out the evil spirit." The host's target was Gordon…

All three networks on Thursday covered the abrupt reversal of the United States Senate on the Keystone XL Pipeline. In the wake of the devastating midterm losses last week, Democrats are allowing a vote. NBC's Today, unlike ABC's Good Morning America and CBS This Morning, ignored the fact that the vote is a transparent attempt to save Senator Mary Landrieu, currently struggling in a Louisiana…

The New Orleans Times-Picayune has had a decades-long love affair with the Landrieu family, and it has been particularly in the tank for the increasingly difficult re-election bid of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu this year. But the T-P, or at least its online version known as NOLA.com, outdid itself on Monday with a hideously biased "news" story by "legislative and state politics reporter" Cole Avery.…

Well, if this doesn't beat all. Based on excuses provided by 63 people (35 percent) out of a "smallish sample" (I'll say) of 181 nonvoters, the Washington Post's Christopher Ingraham whined on Wednesday (HT Twitchy) about how "scheduling conflicts with work or school" kept people from voting last Tuesday. This alleged problem calls for solutions like "requiring employers to allow flexible…

The Esquire blogger Charles Pierce laments that Kansans gave their Republican governor another term even though his “extreme applications of conservative economics” have made the state “a basket case.” Kansas is apparently a "state full of clodhopping, drooling yahoos."

Major broadcast network NBC broke its silence and joined fellow networks ABC and CBS on Wednesday night in covering the news that the Alaska Senate race has been called with Republican challenger Dan Sullivan being declared the winner over Democratic incumbent Senator Mark Begich. NBC Nightly News aired a 23-second news brief on the election result, which gives the GOP at least 53 Senate seats…