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Campaign coverage on primary day in Ohio and Texas last week occupied 69% of the three-network newshole (40 min out of 57) as Hillary Rodham Clinton's wins stalled Barack Obama's drive towards the nomination. "If Obama can score a big enough victory in Mississippi," NBC's Lee Cowan now calculates, "he could essentially erase" those delegate gains. CBS' Dean Reynolds saw Rodham Clinton essentially concede the state in favor of the upcoming contest in Pennsylvania--"which is why she was in Harrisburg instead of Hattiesburg." Hitting the reset button is not so newsworthy when the frontrunner does it. The contest for the 33 Democratic delegates in Mississippi attracted a scant five minutes of coverage.
The major brouhaha on the trail arose from the mouth of Geraldine Ferraro, the Vice Presidential candidate on Walter Mondale's ticket. She would not have won that slot back in 1984 were she not female. So her comments were freighted with irony: "If Barack Obama were a white man would we be talking about this as a potential real problem for Hillary?" All three networks' reporters picked up on Ferraro's remarks, although none noted the strange formulation of calling the frontrunner "a potential real problem." What is "potential" about it? And isn't it the job of the candidate is second place to pose "problems" for the one in front, not vice versa?
Anyway, the outrageous thing Ferraro said came later: "He happens to be very lucky to be who he is." Ferraro thus became the first white liberal in the history of the republic to claim that African-Americans enjoy racial good fortune in society. ABC's Jake Tapper (embargoed link) smelled a rat: Ed Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania and a Rodham Clinton supporter, "has said that there are whites in the state who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American. It may be that this story, with its focus on Obama's race, does not hurt Senator Clinton."
Only NBC balanced out its campaign coverage with a report from the Republican side. What is John McCain doing while the Democrats slog through the primaries? "His whole travel schedule right now is geared to fundraising," Kelly O'Donnell told us. Through the end of January McCain had raised $54m while Rodham Clinton and Obama combined brought in more than $260m. So McCain is "shaking the Republican tree" and "tapping donor lists" obtained from Rudolph Giuliani and Mitt Romney, his onetime primary rivals.
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