Al Cross: "The Winds Blow [Rand] Paul's Way."
Could the winds be blowing Rand Paul's way?
By Al Cross
The polls were encouraging for Kentucky Democrats in late July, showing Ben Chandler with a double-digit lead over challenger Andy Barr in the 6th Congressional District and Jack Conway running even with, or in striking distance of, Rand Paul in the U.S. Senate race. But a closer look at the numbers, and the media environment, should encourage Republicans.
The greatest challenge in election polling is getting a sample of respondents most likely to cast a ballot. When called by live or recorded interviewers, the vast majorities usually say they're certain to vote, but when the election is held, actual voter turnout is often less than half of what that threshold question indicates. That is especially true in a non-presidential election like this year's.
Many consider voting both a virtue and an obligation, something society expects, so they say they will vote. That may reflect their intentions, but when Election Day comes, they forget, or other things seem more important. The elections are often decided by those who are strongly motivated. Intensity of support can be crucial.
This year, Republicans have more motivation and intensity. National polls have shown GOP voters much more strongly motivated to cast ballots, and no wonder. For millions of Americans upset with the direction of the country, Nov. 2 will be their first clear chance to send a message, and messengers, to Washington and President Obama.
That is a big worry for Democrats in Kentucky, where Obama's job approval rating hovers around 40 percent and his disapproval is in the mid- to high 50s. More important (remember the intensity factor), 42 percent of voters in the Insight cable-TV company's cn|2 poll said they strongly disapproved of Obama's work. Only 15 percent strongly approved.
The President is so unpopular that few Kentucky Democrats speak up for him, and most of the party's candidates in the state keep their distance.
Asked by conservative WHAS Radio talk-show host Mandy Connell on Wednesday to give the Obama administration a grade, and say if it had overstepped its bounds or “expanded government in way you are uncomfortable with,” Conway said. “I would give the Obama administration a B minus.”
Conway said the administration has, both with legislation and regulations, “overreached in cap and trade,” the issue that seems to trouble him most because of his early flirtation with the concept and Kentucky's dependence on coal for its electricity. He reflected the received wisdom of Democrats inside the Beltway, but still managed to attack Washington and temper his support for “Obamacare,” as he said, “The thing that upset people about the health-care reform debate was that people were losing their jobs … and here was this 14-month process where people were cutting backroom deals.”
Conway's a good talker in such situations, but it will take plenty of talking to overcome Republican efforts to make the elections a referendum on Obama. And the traditional pattern for a mid-term federal election is likely to be even stronger this year, because of a media environment that favors Republicans.
Yes, Republicans — those folks who most often complain that “the media is” biased against them.
“Media” is a plural, and media are more pluralistic than ever, thanks to the Internet and cable television. Not all media are news media, though some masquerade as journalists, like the blogger who briefly brought down Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod with a misleading video.
But it is such information sources, who have a partisan or philosophical agenda, that are driving coverage in mainstream media, and stealing audience from traditional news media that still adhere to journalistic ideals of fairness and verification.
The trend is partly a function of human nature. People are drawn to information sources that confirm their existing beliefs and do not challenge them. And as media outlets have proliferated, the audience has been fractionalized, making news outlets hungry for readers, listeners and viewers but short of the resources they once had to gather news. Some rely more on opinion; it's a lot cheaper to put a talking head on the air than it is to pay journalists to dig up facts.
The bottom line is that the market for opinion in our republic has increased, while the market for fact has decreased. “There is only a small market for moderation and reason,” John Harris, who moved from The Washington Post to edit the mainly online outlet Politico , wrote recently.
Those trends cannot be good for democracy. “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts,” said the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat who worked for Republicans before becoming a senator.
But facts on candidates in Kentucky Senate races can be hard to come by, especially on local television.
In the 2008 race between Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell and Democrat Bruce Lunsford, TV stations in Lexington (the only significant market entirely in Kentucky) got more than $3.8 million for 13,799 commercials — about 115 hours of mostly misleading opinion. But the stations invested little of that largesse in news coverage; from Sept. 1 through Election Day, their news reports on the races totaled less than four hours — a ratio of 30 to 1 — and most of the reports were short and superficial, often focused on horse-race coverage.
Things are unlikely to be better this year. The Conway-Paul race has an even higher national profile, the Supreme Court has made it much easier for corporations and unions to spend on political campaigns, and interest groups on both sides are amassing millions that will be used mainly for attack ads — which are likely to depress turnout among voters, mainly moderates, who aren't intensely motivated.
Conway has yet to demonstrate that he can develop intensity of support, so his main hope lies in developing intensity of opposition to Paul. As he tries to make the race a referendum on the controversial Republican, his hope rests mainly with moderates, but they seem to be a shrinking piece of the electoral pie. In the cn|2 poll, only 25 percent identified themselves as moderates, and 50 percent said they were conservatives, probably a record high. The winds blow Paul's way.
Al Cross, former Courier-Journal political writer, is director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky. His e-mail address is al.cross@uky.edu. His views are his own, not those of the University of Kentucky.
By Al Cross
The polls were encouraging for Kentucky Democrats in late July, showing Ben Chandler with a double-digit lead over challenger Andy Barr in the 6th Congressional District and Jack Conway running even with, or in striking distance of, Rand Paul in the U.S. Senate race. But a closer look at the numbers, and the media environment, should encourage Republicans.
The greatest challenge in election polling is getting a sample of respondents most likely to cast a ballot. When called by live or recorded interviewers, the vast majorities usually say they're certain to vote, but when the election is held, actual voter turnout is often less than half of what that threshold question indicates. That is especially true in a non-presidential election like this year's.
Many consider voting both a virtue and an obligation, something society expects, so they say they will vote. That may reflect their intentions, but when Election Day comes, they forget, or other things seem more important. The elections are often decided by those who are strongly motivated. Intensity of support can be crucial.
This year, Republicans have more motivation and intensity. National polls have shown GOP voters much more strongly motivated to cast ballots, and no wonder. For millions of Americans upset with the direction of the country, Nov. 2 will be their first clear chance to send a message, and messengers, to Washington and President Obama.
That is a big worry for Democrats in Kentucky, where Obama's job approval rating hovers around 40 percent and his disapproval is in the mid- to high 50s. More important (remember the intensity factor), 42 percent of voters in the Insight cable-TV company's cn|2 poll said they strongly disapproved of Obama's work. Only 15 percent strongly approved.
The President is so unpopular that few Kentucky Democrats speak up for him, and most of the party's candidates in the state keep their distance.
Asked by conservative WHAS Radio talk-show host Mandy Connell on Wednesday to give the Obama administration a grade, and say if it had overstepped its bounds or “expanded government in way you are uncomfortable with,” Conway said. “I would give the Obama administration a B minus.”
Conway said the administration has, both with legislation and regulations, “overreached in cap and trade,” the issue that seems to trouble him most because of his early flirtation with the concept and Kentucky's dependence on coal for its electricity. He reflected the received wisdom of Democrats inside the Beltway, but still managed to attack Washington and temper his support for “Obamacare,” as he said, “The thing that upset people about the health-care reform debate was that people were losing their jobs … and here was this 14-month process where people were cutting backroom deals.”
Conway's a good talker in such situations, but it will take plenty of talking to overcome Republican efforts to make the elections a referendum on Obama. And the traditional pattern for a mid-term federal election is likely to be even stronger this year, because of a media environment that favors Republicans.
Yes, Republicans — those folks who most often complain that “the media is” biased against them.
“Media” is a plural, and media are more pluralistic than ever, thanks to the Internet and cable television. Not all media are news media, though some masquerade as journalists, like the blogger who briefly brought down Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod with a misleading video.
But it is such information sources, who have a partisan or philosophical agenda, that are driving coverage in mainstream media, and stealing audience from traditional news media that still adhere to journalistic ideals of fairness and verification.
The trend is partly a function of human nature. People are drawn to information sources that confirm their existing beliefs and do not challenge them. And as media outlets have proliferated, the audience has been fractionalized, making news outlets hungry for readers, listeners and viewers but short of the resources they once had to gather news. Some rely more on opinion; it's a lot cheaper to put a talking head on the air than it is to pay journalists to dig up facts.
The bottom line is that the market for opinion in our republic has increased, while the market for fact has decreased. “There is only a small market for moderation and reason,” John Harris, who moved from The Washington Post to edit the mainly online outlet Politico , wrote recently.
Those trends cannot be good for democracy. “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts,” said the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat who worked for Republicans before becoming a senator.
But facts on candidates in Kentucky Senate races can be hard to come by, especially on local television.
In the 2008 race between Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell and Democrat Bruce Lunsford, TV stations in Lexington (the only significant market entirely in Kentucky) got more than $3.8 million for 13,799 commercials — about 115 hours of mostly misleading opinion. But the stations invested little of that largesse in news coverage; from Sept. 1 through Election Day, their news reports on the races totaled less than four hours — a ratio of 30 to 1 — and most of the reports were short and superficial, often focused on horse-race coverage.
Things are unlikely to be better this year. The Conway-Paul race has an even higher national profile, the Supreme Court has made it much easier for corporations and unions to spend on political campaigns, and interest groups on both sides are amassing millions that will be used mainly for attack ads — which are likely to depress turnout among voters, mainly moderates, who aren't intensely motivated.
Conway has yet to demonstrate that he can develop intensity of support, so his main hope lies in developing intensity of opposition to Paul. As he tries to make the race a referendum on the controversial Republican, his hope rests mainly with moderates, but they seem to be a shrinking piece of the electoral pie. In the cn|2 poll, only 25 percent identified themselves as moderates, and 50 percent said they were conservatives, probably a record high. The winds blow Paul's way.
Al Cross, former Courier-Journal political writer, is director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky. His e-mail address is al.cross@uky.edu. His views are his own, not those of the University of Kentucky.
Labels: General information, Rand Paul
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 11:44 AM
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