Campaigns & Elections

The Big Three networks certainly have their priorities straight. ABC, CBS, and NBC's morning shows on Wednesday dedicated more time to entertainment news than the results of the Wisconsin recall election. On CBS This Morning, Disney's new ban on junk food ads from its kids programming received a minute and a half more than the political story. The same gap occurred on ABC's Good Morning America…

Searching for an excuse to explain what went wrong for Democrats in Wisconsin, the broadcast networks blamed "a record-shattering $64 million poured into" the recall election by "conservative out-of-state groups" supporting Republican Governor Scott Walker.   On Wednesday's CBS This Morning, correspondent Bill Plante promoted Obama campaign talking points on the major Democratic loss: "...…

The Obama administration has done its best to oppose states from instituting new, stricter voter ID laws, complaining that many minority voters lack photo identification. But those same folks it wants voting in November are apparently not welcome anywhere near the First Lady's book signings. Something tells me that the same media outlets comparing voter ID laws to the Jim Crow Laws, however,…

Politico's Glenn Thrush insists that there's "Only one takeaway from Wisconsin: Money shouts." "Cash doesn't talk in 2012, it shouts, and Wisconsin was a sonic boom that's breaking glass in Chicago," Thrush groused, adding that "Conservative groups outspent unions and progs in Wisconsin by an estimated SEVEN-TO-ONE." Although it's a predictable left-leaning take on yesterday's results, it's…

To be fair, Yahoo News's main home page has a headlined item called "What Scott Walker can teach Barack Obama," a later reference to the slapping of Tom Barrett by a "supporter" for supposedly conceding too early, and the Politics mini-section of the home page lists three Wisconsin-related stories. But Yahoo News's U.S. home page (screen grabs here and here) as of 11 a.m. ET was a Wisconsin-…

Benjamin Franklin, statesman and signer of our Declaration of Independence, said: "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." John Adams, another signer, echoed a similar statement: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." Are today's…

I noticed at lunch on Tuesday while reading the handy Washington Post commuter tabloid called "Express" that Scott Bauer at Associated Press actually wrote this sentence: "A Marquette University Law School poll released last week showed Walker with a narrow 7-percentage point lead over Barrett, 52 percent to 45 percent." That looks like a pretty accurate poll. Is this what the 2008 race was…

Tuesday night's edition of The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News featured one of the latest videos from Dan Joseph of MRCTV from the streets of Madison. Joseph tried to interview an angry aging hippie as he held up leftist signs, including one with Gov. Scott Walker's face in a pile of elephant dung. Joseph turned to a group of middle-school-aged children who said the protester was scary. O'Reilly…

As of 11:15 p.m., with about 74% of the votes counted, Wisconsin Governor Scott was ahead of Scott Barrett by roughly a 56-44 margin. Late-arriving votes from Democrat-heavy areas of Milwaukee and Dane Counties seemed likely to narrow the margin to perhaps 10 points. (UPDATE: Because heavier margins of support for Barrett in those two counties, the final margin was 6.9%, roughly the same as…

The media's crush on Bill Clinton has only grown stronger since he left office, and CNN renewed its affection for the former president on Tuesday by airing over four minutes of him introducing President Obama at a Democratic fund raiser. Fox News caught some flack for producing and airing a four-minute anti-Obama video – not that NBC and MSNBC haven't done the same thing to Romney – but CNN…

As he has for nearly 16 months, the AP's Scott Bauer once again included a false statement about what the budget repair legislation also known as "Act 10" passed by Wisconsin's legislature and signed by Governor Scott Walker last year did to public-sector unions and their ability to collectively bargain. He wrote: "Enraged Democrats and labor activists gathered more than 900,000 signatures in…

Seated atop a high horse on Monday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Peter Alexander lamented the tone of the Wisconsin recall election of Republican Governor Scott Walker: "It is a fiery local campaign that analysts say highlights the country's nasty political landscape, where demonization often drowns out discourse." What Alexander failed to notice from his lofty perch was that left-wing…

Tonight is the big night for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the union drones who despise him. Exit polls are said to be trending in Walker's favor so expect tonight to be very interesting, particularly if Walker's Democratic opponent, Tom Barrett, goes down hard. Join us tonight as we keep track of the latest news in a live chat to discuss the recall election and the media coverage of it…

CBS This Morning on Tuesday heralded President Obama and former President Bill Clinton's joint fundraising appearances in New York City, playing up the "star-studded lineup" that appeared with the two. Correspondent Bill Plante gushed that Obama "shared the stage and the spotlight with former President Bill Clinton...his reputation now bathed in nostalgia as he made the case for his fellow…