The dynamic in political punditry today and what might end up making the difference in the Prez race

[stevenleser]

Not sure who Dee Evans is but she is right here. Republican/Conservative pundits in the US are always on message and always spinning. Pundits considered more amenable to the Democratic/Liberal side will still call a loss a loss or a failure a failure if they see it that way. Republican/Conservative pundits will always try to spin a loss by a Republican as a victory and a failure as a success. That is the dynamic in politics today.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dee-evans/media-bias-debates_b_1989561.html

It's always talked about but rarely examined, Republican reaction to a crisis and monumental disappointment versus Democratic reaction to the same. The difference was never on such wide-eyed display as in the past 2-3 weeks following the first two debates between the presidential contenders.

According to numerous polls, most people have decided that Mitt Romney won the first debate and President Obama came out on top in the second debate; but looking at the Democratic reaction to President Obama's first debate and Republican reaction to Mitt Romney's second debate is like looking at yourself in a fun house mirror. You look at yourself pre-mirror and you think you look tall, thin and beautiful until you step in front of the funhouse mirror and it tells you that you're short, fat and your nose is big.

When President Obama whiffed on the first debate (and let's be honest, it definitely was not his best showing) Liberals and Democrats (especially in the media) proceeded immediately to the nearest cliff and jumped off without so much as a net or a last cigarette. They screamed and yelled and lit their hair on fire! Watching post-debate analysis on MSNBC was like watching a rerun of Roseanne when one of her kids has done something really stupid and the only thing she feels she can do is scream at them until "she" feels better... not the kid, but her. The funny thing is that until the post-debate television commentary, I was reading the live blogs on several liberal leaning websites and none of them portrayed Obama as doing as badly as was described in the post-debate analysis. Some were commenting that Obama had some strong moments; some noted that he seemed to come alive at the end and some even called it a tie. But boy howdy, when the debate was over and the doors flung open... church was OUT! I honestly thought Ed Schultz and Chris Matthews were going to have a stroke! They ranted and raved and called Obama everything but a child of God. Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Beast wanted to put Obama in a basket and leave him on the doorstep of his creepiest neighbor. It seemed that all it took for Liberal America to fall out of love with Barack Obama was a bad debate. Hell, if Republicans only knew that they would have scheduled a debate for Obama in 2009.
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[GeorgiaDemGuy]

1. REpubs have message discipline

they take marching orders and walk in lockstep...
we Dems.....not so much.

[stevenleser]

2. It's partially because most of the Conservative pundits all work for the same corporation and

share notes.

[navarth]

3. It's true....and it's disgusting

I had the same kind of experience with the first debate. And I had this kind of experience with the 2000 debate. I watch and then the pundits tells me I should be thinking something else entirely. This sucks. How many lazy thinkers will go by that? Without considering that maybe the pundits are acting like NFL refs giving some breaks to the team that's behind by 4 touchdowns just to keep the viewers interested enough to see the next detergent commercial.

I still think the Prez is going to win in spite of this crap, but it needs to be addressed.

[1StrongBlackMan]

4. exccellant Commentary. n/t

[Spike89]

5. On the bright side of this equation

It is true about the pundits, ours are willing to say what they think and theirs will always say what they think helps their cause. That can affect perception, i.e., Romney "won" the first debate and Obama may have "tied" the second. The good news is that the low-info people this has the greatest effect on are both less likely to vote and way less likely to even know there was a debate, much less watch it and the pundit spin following.

The pundits are increasingly preaching (screaming) at the choir and decreasingly having any chance of influencing voters. What they can and still can do is get the various bases excited. What the smarter pundits know, and what no pundit will really admit, is that they are most effective at giving the bases their playbooks.

It isn't Rachel, or O'Reilly that has the biggest effect on the "masses"...the vast majority of Americans simply don't watch the news channels regularly. The majority of people are much more affected by friends, family, coworkers and others who do watch cable news. That doesn't mean that if you watch Faux News you'll always be able to convince your BIL to vote Romney, but you have a better chance. Listening to Rachel may help you "win" the kitchen table debate over the economy ans sway your sister to Obama.

The biggest lie out there is that there is anything called mainstream media and that it is extremely powerful. Add the ratings from all the cable news pundits together and they don't come close to a typical saturday or sunday football game, a vapid Thursday night sitcom, or the formulaic cop drama on Tuesday.

[Marr]

6. When you stop caring about facts, and think "belief" trumps reality...

... naturally you're going to describe things like debates as you *want* them to be, not as they actually are. It's the same type of thinking that fuels their never-ending, religious devotion to ideas like "cutting taxes increases government revenue", even though it's been thoroughly proven untrue.

For everything else in their world to make sense, this maxim must be true. So they believe it is true.