. . . if there’s another terrorist attack, Republicans will win in November. If not, and the economy continues to sag, Democrats will win.
Which means nobody really wants things to go well, eh?
Cross-posted at AmbivaBlog
PoliGazette Comments Policy
PoliGazette encourages comments from all viewpoints, especially those that disagree.
Comments submitted must, however, adhere to the following standards. Comments that violate
these standards may be edited or deleted without notice at the sole discretion of the editors.
Commenters who repeatedly or egregiously violate these standards or who attempt to argue
publicly with editors regarding the comments policy may be banned from commenting further.
(1) Comments should address the substantive content of the post. Comments that repeatedly
or blatantly misrepresent the content of the post or of others' comments are not welcome. Comments that
respond to something other than which the contributor or commenter may have said are irrelevant and should
not be posted.
(2) Comments should avoid vulgarity as well as racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual bigotry.
(3) Comments should not personally attack the character, personal integrity, or professional
reputation of any PoliGazette contributor or of other commenters.
(4) Comments should reflect the contributions of the commenters themselves and should not
include extensive cut-and-paste reproductions of others' words except insofar as necessary to supplement
the commenter's own arguments. Link spam, trackback spam, and propaganda spam will be instantly deleted.
(5) Public figures are considered open to all substantive criticism of their policies and statements.
Comments that present objectively false factual information about public figures (i.e. "Obama is a Muslim") or
that attack public figures by attacking their families are not welcome. Comments that merely repeat
slogans for or against a candidate without engaging in substantive comment are not welcome.
Questions or challenges to these policies or their application should be directed to the editors
by email only.
OK, you heard it here first………January 30th.
After 5 years of being pelted by the media on Iraq, the non-polar voter will gladly continue to push that out of front and center. So, yes, renewed fear of terrorism will aid the R candidate, but actually I see it fading overall as an issue except to Markos Moulitsas’ readers.
And while the media cannot hype the "recession" enough to please their desire for reporting calamity, the underlying economic fundamentals will continue to hold on (and/or actually improve) to November and the old "it’s the economy stupid" won’t be a massively effective vote driver either.
I don’t know about that, unfortunately. It seems that the public has become convinced that the economy really is tanking even when it’s not. Even when there was decent economic growth, people who reported that their own situation was better than it had been in the past but they all still assumed that everyone else was in dire straits.
That’s exactly right Christine. And you can count on the Media portraying it the way they want to, regardless of reality.
A few years back I read something on a website (it’s been so long that I don’t remember who or where I read it) that went to a lot of trouble to point out the media’s spin on economics.
They quoted and compared what the media had to say about economic indicators that were virtually identical but took place in either the Clinton or Bush administration. For example, if there was 5% unemployment, during Clinton’s years this was considered goood news, but during the Bush years it was presented as bad news, forboding terrible things to come.
This can have a huge effect on how the public views the economy regardless of their personal circumstances.