Tracking Negativity

In tracking the Washington Post themes, I wanted to know which politicians were receiving the most negative coverage, and when they were receiving it. I post my results with this caveat: Tracking negativity can be subjective. If a column stated that a candidate was either fundamentally flawed, or employing a bad strategy, I charted it as “Negative.” This was tricky in the case of Eugene Robinson, who wrote a few columns that stated the Democrats were erring in not attacking McCain. Who is getting the real criticism, here? In the case of Eugene, I made the call not to count the articles as negative coverage. Grey areas were no obstacle in the case of Bob Novak, who wrote a whopping 6 clearly negative pieces on Barack Obama. Same goes for Charles Krauthammer, who wrote 5 negative Obama screeds.

Overall, I recorded 17 negative Hillary Clinton pieces, 30 negative Barack Obama pieces, and 11 negative John McCain pieces. The last two weeks of February saw 7 negative pieces, easily her negative coverage peak in my sample. Over that same time period, Obama only recieved 2 such pieces, and McCain had 3. Obama got hit worst around the time of the Pennslyvannia primary (held April 22nd). From April 14 to April 25, Obama tallied 8 negative columns. Obama saw a second apogee in the return of Wright coverage (5 such columns from May 1-6). The second peak is very interesting because I found no sinking poll numbers that correlated with the negativity (Rasmussen has Obama gaining 6 points on Hillary during this time period, as does Gallup). With only 11 negative pieces, McCain has not really had “peaks,” but he did tally 3 attacks from 4/22 to 4/27. His poll numbers have been somewhat stagnant over the course of my research. Currently, Clinton is losing ground to him and Obama is gaining.

Mysterious Polls

From February 14 to May 6 (50 days), I read and wrote basic summaries of every presidential race related editorial in the Washington Post. One of my initial goals was to track opinion page themes, in hopes of finding a connection between WaPo tropes and actual public opinion. Specifically, I wanted to see a correlation between events and positive/negative coverage. After matching Op-Ed themes with head-to-head (McCain vs. Obama, Obama vs. Clinton, Clinton vs. McCain), Zogby, Gallup, AP and Rasmussen poll results, I found little correlation between public opinion results and Post coverage. What I did find was a heavy emphasis on “character” issues, and little emphasis on policy issues.

There were one major instance of poll activity correlating to opinion making. Obama’s numbers dipped in the wake of the Jeremiah Wright coverage, which hit the airwaves beginning on March 14. On March 17, Gallup tallied Clinton 47%, Obama 45%, and Obama 49%, McCain 47%. Two days later, after the story had gotten significant media attention, Gallup had Clinton 49%, Obama 42%, and McCain 47%, Obama 43%. Thus, began an onslaught of Wright questions in the Washington Post Op-Ed pages. From March 19 to the beginning of April, a whopping 10 out of the 21 presidential race focused editorials were devoted to the Reverend Wright issue.

A few factors may have fueled Wright pontificating in March. The new issue’s connection to race and boomer generation ‘culture wars’ was probably just plain interesting to many media members. Perhaps the negative poll bounce prompted some of the heavy Wright attention, and Obama may have attracted more coverage with his “A More Perfect Union” response speech.

The rationale for heavy early May “return of Wright coverage” makes little sense, though. The pastor made three few public appearances, and the Washington Post deemed it necessary to devote an astounding 8 out of 12 May 1- May 6 presidential editorials to this topic. This is odd because I found no evidence of a negative public reaction during or after the pastor’s April 26 PBS interview, or April 28 National Press Club speech. Obama still felt the need to “distance” himself from Wright, and did so in an April 29 speech. Obama’s poll numbers remained relatively stagnant immediately after the speech, and trended upwards in the following weeks.

As he came closer to mathematically eliminating Hillary Clinton, Obama’s poll prospects saw an uptick (The most recent polls show Obama beating Clinton by 7 points in the Gallup, 7 in the Rasmussen, and a whopping 16 in the Zogby). This is quite interesting for reasons I will get to in the second phase of my conclusions.

• 5/6 Richard Cohen

Obama’s refusal to wear the flag pin is indicative of a good thing: He is an independent thinker.

• 5/6 E.J. Dionne Jr.

The strange race has transformed who the candidates are. Clinton went from overconfident to the pugilistic comeback kid. Obama went from the transformative upstart to being the flawed frontrunner.

• 5/6 Wrap: I can’t believe Cohen said something substantive. Too bad it’s still personality-centric.

• 5/5 Sebastian Mallaby

The Wright “controversy” is more a poor reflection on our political discourse than a poor reflection on Obama. It shouldn’t have the impact it does.

• 5/5 Wrap: Word.  

• 5/4 David Broder

Clinton’s imagined path relies on an Indiana victory, keeping Obama’s lead to 100, and then wooing superdelegates.

•  5/4 Wrap: YAWN.

• 5/3 Colbert I. King

Republicans will use Wright the same way they used Willie Horton against Dukakis.

• 5/3 Gary MacDougal

Wright has not just done damage to Obama. He has done damage to the black community.

• 5/3 Wrap: There’s really nothing more amusing than an old, white, conservative explaining how black people think and feel. From MacDougal:

“But I also recall a conversation I had during a visit to the maximum-security prison in Joliet, Ill. As I sat in the library there, talking with three men about why they were incarcerated, one man said: “Look around this room — almost everybody here is black. This is white man’s genocide. You put us in here to keep us down.” Where would this 20-something black man, or other relatively uneducated young people, get such an idea? From the vitriol spewed by the Rev. Wrights of this world.”

I have an alternate thesis: Those men told this to MacDougal because they’re in PRISON. I doubt they were brainwashed into thinking society unfair.

• 5/2 Charles Krauthammer

Obama’s recent disownment of Wright reveals his Philadelphia speech to be an exercise is disingenuous political expediency. Wright’s antics call Obama’s character into question.

• 5/2 E.J. Dionne Jr.

Conservatives get a media free pass for associating with radical white preachers (Obama has not gotten anywhere near the same treatment).

•  5/2 Michael Gerson

In his Philadelphia speech, Obama was condescending towards Wright and he was condescending towards white working class Americans. This is a problem.

•  5/2 Wrap: I simply do not see how Wright is “racist,” as Krauthammer (quote below) asserts. Am I missing something?

“Poor Geraldine Ferraro, thrice lashed by Obama in Philadelphia as the white equivalent of Wright’s raving racism, is off the hook.”