Campaigns & Elections

In the 1 pm hour on Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh expressed amazement at the new Obama radio ad targeting black Americans. This is probably not a topic the political media will emphasize -- liberal and Democratic ads aimed at minority voters have at times been scurrilous  and outrageous attacks on Republicans. But this ad uses old-time soul singers and a black announcer urging blacks "have to show…

Of course you probably won't hear an apology or retraction on the network's programming, but PolitiFact.com has determined that MSNBC's Chris Matthews was in error when the Hardball host claimed on his June 4 program that a new Florida law -- which has been on hold by a federal judge -- made it utterly impossible for voter registration drives to sign up new voters over weekends. The law…

Good Morning America, hosted by former Democratic operative George Stephanopoulos, highlighted panic, Wednesday, about Barack Obama's reelection campaign. GMA's Jake Tapper warned, "Top Democrats are sounding the alarm. They are worried that President Obama's economic message is tone-deaf." The segment featured James Carville, who worked with Stephanopoulos in the Clinton administration.…

We've gone from "hope and change" to hoping blaming Bush will work.  As Joe Scarborough said: at least Mika Brzezinski's honest about it.  Asked whether she believed that President Obama's attempt to continue to blame George W. Bush for the country's economic woes will work as a campaign strategy, a seemingly dispirited Mika Brzezinski replied: "well, I'm hopin'".  Scarborough burst into…

The BuzzFeed Website carried an article on Monday based on an interview with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in which he said that his father, George H. W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan would have a difficult time getting nominated by today's “ultra-conservative” Republican Party in a “hyper-partisan moment.” The only problem is that Bush never used the words “ultra-conservative” or “hyper-partisan”in…

At the top of his Tuesday MSNBC morning show The Daily Rundown, NBC chief White House correspondent and political director Chuck Todd cited the Romney campaign's refusal to release a list of top fundraising bundlers as evidence that "if he wins in November, Romney could very well be the least transparent president in a generation." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Todd…

Shortly before the close of her Jansing & Co. program today, MSNBC morning anchor Chris Jansing informed viewers of 90-year-old comedienne Betty White's visit and photo-op with President Obama in the Oval Office on Monday. Jansing made it sound as though White's visit was a simple apolitical courtesy call before the nonagenarian actress gave a speech at the Smithsonian, and it may well…

Here is yet another "fact check" whose sole purpose is to try to invent reasons that an objectively true statement made by a conservative or Republican really isn't. Monday, the Associated Press's Stephen Ohlemacher tried to claim that "Taxmageddon," the $423 billion tax increase which will take effect on January 1 if Congress and President Obama don't act to prevent it, won't really be the…

While the national liberal media, particularly MSNBC, have been eager to portray Florida's efforts to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls as a "purge" that is really motivated by partisan attempts at "voter suppression," the Miami Herald reporter who's been covering the story as it develops seems to see it quite differently than his colleagues. In his June 12 story, Marc Caputo notes (…

On the night before the special election in Arizona to fill former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' seat, CNN's Piers Morgan gave some last-minute positive airtime to Giffords' hand-picked Democratic candidate. He hosted both the candidate Ron Barber and Giffords' husband Mark Kelly on Monday for a soft interview. In what set the tone for the rest of the interview, Morgan began with a…

On Tuesday's NBC Today, correspondent Kristen Welker amazingly shoe-horned a swipe at Republicans into a report about Commerce Secretary John Bryson causing multiple car accidents over the weekend, claiming that a tweet from a GOP super-PAC about the incident was "a sign of how contentious the campaign season has gotten." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] After quoting…

To commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the infamous 1972 break-in at the Watergate, Andrea Mitchell on Monday hosted John Dean, President Nixon’s former legal counsel. The MSNBC anchor and the conservative critic actually connected the scandal to the 2010 Citizen United Supreme Court case.  During the interview, Dean complained that the “financial reform that came with Watergate is gone…

On Friday, conscientious Americans participated in 164 coordinated noontime rallies in support of religious freedom, but those demonstrations were ignored by the liberal broadcast media, NewsBusters contributor and Media Research Center analyst Matthew Balan noted yesterday. At the same time, networks have played up conflict over a Vatican investigation of feminist nuns. NewsBusters publisher…

Barack Obama won the 2008 election in an electoral vote landslide, but racism darn near cost him the election - and if he loses this year, it will be because of racism, so says a doctoral candidate at Harvard University. Google search data proves it, says Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, who is a candidate for a Ph.D. in economics, and wrote a post for the New York Times' “Campaign Stops” blog…