Winners And Losers: Election, Election, Election
It’s Friday, which means it’s time to separate the chumps from the champs in Mediaite’s Winners and Losers, our scorecard of who rocked and who flopped in the headines.
This week, a special off-year election edition, featuring Doug Hoffman, Mike Bloomberg, and more:
The Bronze Loser: Mike Bloomberg
As expected, New York’s richest citizen bought himself a third mayoral term. But somehow after spending $151.27 per vote (much of it his own money) to run against the little-known City Comptroller (who Obama barely supported by name) he STILL only managed a marginal victory. Then again, a win’s a win, and as the mayor-for-life pointed out to reporters, “The Yankees win, whether they win in four, five, six or seven, it’s Number 27 – that’s all that matters, okay?” (Funny, no one can compete with their spending either.)
The Bronze Winner: Tim Kaine
The DNC chairman proved a skilled spinster Wednesday morning, glossing over key gubernatorial defeats like a pro! Before Governor Kaine’s explanation, you might have thought incumbent John Corzine should have won New Jersey, what with his mounds of money and the backing of the Garden State democratic machine. But now you know neither Corzine nor Virginia democratic candidate Creigh Deeds ever had a shot at victory – not because they blew it, but because of historical trends. Well played!
The Silver Loser: CNN
Election coverage was the network’s bread and butter back in ‘08. Remember the ‘magic wall’ and those awesome virtual holograms? Apparently you can only dazzle viewers with snazzy graphics for so long! “The Best Political Team on Television” was the least watched Tuesday night, finishing dead last among cable news outlets. And that includes HLN, which didn’t even cover the 09 election. Which begs the question, how’s that non-partisan thing working out?
The Silver Winner: Doug Hoffman
Long before the votes were tallied in the NY-23 congressional race, right-wing pundits had declared the Conservative party candidate the winner. And after he lost by a few points to Democrat Bill Owens? STILL the winner! Ok, Maybe not the winner-winner, but his loss was still a Republican victory. Or Something. Sarah Palin broke it down on Facebook: “The race for NY’s 23rd is not over. It’s just postponed until 2010.” Gotcha. So letting a democrat represent the district for the first time since the Civil War frees up Republicans to focus on the real race!
The Gold Loser: Barack Obama
If you believe the exit polls, GOP sweeps in New Jersey and Virginia were not be a referendum on Obama’s presidency. But they’re still kind of his fault! Because low turnout among young voters is certainly a referendum on Obama’s sexiness. Between an economy in free-fall, two wars, and healthcare reform, Obama forgot to keep politics fun and exciting for the kids! And with that, his “Vote or Die” youth coalition of 08 became the “Vote or Don’t Bother” youth disassociation of 09, propelling Republicans to victory.
The Gold Winner: John McCain
A year later, the former presidential hopeful is sure to have regrets about his failed candidacy. But John McCain can look back with pride, knowing he made at least smart decision last year. And that was refusing to let Sarah Palin speak on Election Night. This week the Daily Beast got hold of her undelivered speeches — concession AND victory — and they were as amusing/cringe-worthy as as we might have imagined.
10 comments
Perhaps CNN “lost” because they covered the election. After all most people didn’t have a vote on Tuesday and the results really didn’t affect anyone, except those who could’ve gone to the poll.
Otherwise with the exception of HLN, who only occasionally beats their parent, didn’t the other two finish in the order they normally do on a Tuesday night?
Mjkandjd says: I think the writer’s point is well taken. People don’t watch cable news’ election returns to see who won in their local township races. They watch to learn national trends and the outcome of national bellweather elections. So market share among that group is not a reflection of the interest of those who are affected by the races but network is most effective at delivering that information to an audience interested in the implications of key elections across the country. CNN clearly didn’t meet the demand.
@Mjkandjd: I’m a political junkie from way back, but I don’t live in either of the states with Governors or either of those who had a Congressional, so I just let the Yahoo! frontpage tell me who won and I read some analysis in the WaPo, the NYTimes, CNN.com and a couple of other sites.
And I’m pretty sure it was the Huffington Post, who linked me to AP stories about Maine and Breckinridge.
I’ve been active in politics since the Carter administration and didn’t care enough to watch and to be honest, I’ve yet to have a single person on the street say anything to me about last Tuesday, so I’m willing to bet that most other people didn’t care also.
Next year will be the measure because it’ll be a national election, off-year, but still national and I feel that would merit some kind of extended, over-hyped coverage. This year, it was all about a handful of states, a bunch of Obama-haters and not a lot of other people, as proven by the ratings.
kristianna says: True that the Democrats lost the two governorship contests in Virginia and New Jersey but by winning the congressional elections in New York and California, the Dems have expanded their hold in Congress which for now is probably more important to President Obama. The so called Blue Dog Democrats in Congress concerned about re-election may need to take note.
christmas stocking fillers
ImNotBlue says: The Silver Winner: Doug Hoffman
…So letting a democrat represent the district for the first time since the Civil War frees up Republicans to focus on the real race!
This is STILL a lie. You need to stop assuming that Nancy Pelosi is telling the truth, and do a little research. It’s a LIE.
Magister says:
November 6, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Otherwise with the exception of HLN, who only occasionally beats their parent, didn’t the other two finish in the order they normally do on a Tuesday night?
No. You’re theories could stand a good dose or reality before formulation.
Skeptical says: ImNotBlue said:
Doug Hoffman
…So letting a democrat represent the district for the first time since the Civil War frees up Republicans to focus on the real race!
This is STILL a lie. You need to stop assuming that Nancy Pelosi is telling the truth, and do a little research. It’s a LIE.
What do you mean? I am guessing you are noting that there is some art to attributing succession to a congressional district, but I think your line about “a LIE” is just bluster.
@ImNotBlue: I’ll be the first to admit that I generally don’t pay attention to the TVNewser ratings posts, especially since the comments attached to them have become so ridiculous, but I just clicked through the four Tuesdays in October.
On all four Tuesday primetimes, Fox comes in first in both the demo and total viewers; MSNBC always comes in second and HLN has come in third twice, plus one time they won the demo and CNN came in third in total viewers.
So, maybe I underestimated HLN’s growth, but for quite some time, FOX has come in first in primetime and MSNBC has come in a (distant) second.
Individual shows might play differently; For instance on the 27th, Larry King beat Joy Behar and Anderson Cooper seems to always do better than the Nancy Grace repeat, but Fox usually comes in first, MSNBC second and apparently based on Nancy Grace’s performance at eight, the two US-based CNNs flip back and forth for the total night.
ImNotBlue says: Skeptical says:
November 7, 2009 at 5:46 pm
What do you mean? I am guessing you are noting that there is some art to attributing succession to a congressional district, but I think your line about “a LIE” is just bluster.
I have already sourced this… it’s as easy as Wikipedia. It is a lie to say that the district was not held by a Democrat since the Civil War. Some areas of the district, perhaps… but as the information states… not the district. It is a lie, pure and simple.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%27s_23rd_congressional_district
Magister says:
November 8, 2009 at 4:59 am
You were talking about who covered the races, and who didn’t. They all covered the races, some more thoroughly than the other… but all covered them closely. That’s what I was speaking to.
@ImNotBlue: I addressed your quote from my previous comment.
Otherwise, like most people, I didn’t care who became Governor of some far away state, so I didn’t watch any of the coverage. But, I assume that Nancy Grace did her regular crime beat and my thing about “losing” because they covered the election might have been poorlly worded, but I meant that they probably should’nt have poured so many resources into a story that only appealed to a small subset of the population.
jessicarobert says: It was a great experience reading this post….came to knew about all the losers and winners of the last week off-year election.
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