Campaigns & Elections

I heard Rush Limbaugh comment on this report from the Associated Press's Thomas Beaumont and Brian Bakst ("Romney, GOP suddenly plunging onto Democratic turf") this afternoon on his program. This evening, having read the whole, I agree with him (which of course often happens) that the AP writer are very upset that GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney and his campaign are going after…

Yesterday's Style page of the Washington Post devoted a gauzy piece by staffer Jason Horowitz to Obama's "data-driven guru" David Plouffe. Today, Horowitz's colleague Amy Gardner took her turn at Obama campaign puffery with her Style section front-pager, " "Welcome to the 'Jen and Jay Show,' the latest iteration of the White House news briefing," Gardner opened her October 31 piece on the Air…

Hawking a new NBC Publishing ebook on Wednesday's NBC Today about the network's election night television coverage dating back to 1948, author and TV Guide business editor Steve Battaglio touted a moment featured in the book of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams during election night in 2008: "Brian knew that it was going to be a very special night....having a pretty good idea that Barack…

On Wednesday's CBS This Morning, Jan Crawford hyped the cleanup from Hurricane Sandy as a "huge opportunity" for President Obama to display his leadership skills, as opponent Mitt Romney currently hold the advantage in that area in the latest CBS News poll of key battleground states, particularly in Florida. Crawford also touted that Obama could "build his lead on the question of which…

A Mitt Romney quote circulated by Democrats over the weekend has now been hyped into a "political controversy" by CNN. A liberal journalist and a Democratic strategist first brought the story to CNN on Monday morning, and by Tuesday CNN's Soledad O'Brien brought it up in an interview. "In the wake of super storm Sandy, a political controversy rages over something Mitt Romney said at a…

As the liberal media generally but MSNBC most intensely has attacked for an October 30 Ohio event in which Governor Romney spurred on rally attendees to help pack relief supplies for folks displaced by Hurricane Sandy, the Washington Post's Al Kamen (formerly a legal reporter at the paper) groused that Gov. Romney is trying hard not to look like he’s still in campaign mode, while praising…

On Wednesday's NBC Today, political director Chuck Todd seized on the latest CBS News/New York Times poll showing narrow leads for President Obama in Ohio, Virginia, and Florida as "evidence, potentially, to back up the Obama spin" that "Romney has run out of routes to 270 electoral votes...so they are throwing Hail Marys in new states." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump…

Updated below | An election season mailer linked to Focus on the Family and sent out to evangelical Christian voters in Iowa unfairly quoted President Obama out of context, CNN's Political Tracker blog complained this morning. Yet in Peter Hamby's blog post -- Anti-Obama mail piece: ‘We are no longer a Christian nation’ --  the CNN.com staffer glossed over the fact that the other charges…

Good Morning America's Jon Karl on Wednesday touted Hurricane Sandy as an opportunity for Barack Obama to show "presidential leadership." During the same segment, Karl repeated liberal talking points, using the storm against Mitt Romney. He pointed out that, at an event, Tuesday, the Republican "ignored questions about his views on FEMA funding." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Karl…

One thing that you have to admire about Nate Silver is that he isn’t afraid to go out on a limb.  As an example of that, the New York Times political soothsayer currently projects Barack Obama winning the popular vote by 1.7%.  That would place him well on the left side of most current polling.  The below histogram shows the distribution of the spread between the two candidates in each of the…

On Wednesday's NBC Today, correspondent Keir Simmons reported from the European Weather Center in Britain that projected Hurricane Sandy's path and touted how "Global warming could make their work more important than ever." The center's Professor Alan Thorpe explained: "If it turned out to be the case that such storms became more common, then our weather forecasting models need to factor that…

CEO Sergio Marchionne of Fiat, the parent company of the U.S. government bailed-out Chrysler, got two unexpected and undeserved breaks from Craig Trudell at Bloomberg yesterday. The first was the story's presidential election-driven focus in its headline ("Chrysler CEO Reiterates Jeep Production Staying in U.S.") and first five paragraphs on Fiat's plans to manufacture vehicles in China for…

Tuesday’s front-page of The Washington Post offered a positive profile of Comcast’s chief lobbyist (and Democrat) David Cohen, the “wonk rock star.” The story’s central idea was the notion that Cohen’s offering of a low-income Internet service was a crucial part of Obama’s FCC approving Comcast’s merger with NBC Universal....as if the massive campaign cash for Democrats didn’t help seal the…

In Tuesday afternoon’s broadcast of Andrea Mitchell Reports, Mitchell accused Romney of surreptitious campaigning, and asked what are the true intentions of Governor Romney collecting storm supplies after a hurricane.  Along with Chris Cillizza, who writes The Washington Post’s The Fix blog, Andrea Mitchell nonsensically noted how donations are the most effective forms of assistance in…