Media Coverage of the Presidential Candidates

At Politico, Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen write:

On the front page of its Sunday edition, the New York Times gave a big spread to Ann Romney spending lots of time and tons of money on an exotic genre of horse-riding. The clear implication: The Romneys are silly rich, move in rarefied and exotic circles, and are perhaps a tad shady.

Only days earlier, news surfaced that author David Maraniss had unearthed new details about Barack Obama’s prolific, college-age dope-smoking for his new book, “Barack Obama: The Story” — and the Times made it a brief on A15.

No wonder Republicans are livid with the early coverage of the 2012 general election campaign. To them, reporters are scaring up stories to undermine the introduction of Mitt Romney to the general election audience – and once again downplaying ones that could hurt the president.

“The New York Times has given Obama the longest wet kiss in political history, and they have done him a favor again,” former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said. “The New York Times does a huge expose that Ann Romney rides horses. Well, so does my wife, and a few million other people. Watch out for equine performers!”

Republicans cry “bias” so often it feels like a campaign theme. It is, largely because it fires up conservatives and diminishes the punch of legitimate investigative or narrative journalism. But it also is because it often rings true, even to people who don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh – or Haley Barbour.

And the imbalance can do slow, low-grade but unmistakable damage to Romney: Swing voters are just getting to know him. And coverage suggesting he is mean or extravagant can soak in, even though voters who took the time to weigh the details might dismiss the storyline.

It’s certainly hard to argue that the Romneys’ horse-riding habits today are worse than the Maraniss revelations, which have gotten little mainstream coverage.

And the horse-riding story came a few weeks after a second story that made Republicans see red – another front-pager, this time in the Washington Post, that hit Mitt Romney for bullying a kid who might have been gay, in high school nearly a half-century ago. The clear implication to readers: Romney was a mean, insensitive jerk.

Maraniss works for the Post and his pot-smoking scoop, which included details of Obama’s college-era dope-smoking club and waste-no-weed rules for inhaling it, never made the front of his own paper.

Bad Unemployment News

It doesn't matter what Barack Obama smoked in high school, what Mitt Romney did to his dog, or what a wacko billionaire says about Hawaiian birth certificates.  If the economic news stays this bad, Obama loses. From Bloomberg:

American employers in May added the smallest number of workers in a year and the unemployment rate unexpectedly increased as job-seekers re-entered the workforce, further evidence that the labor-market recovery is stalling.

Payrolls climbed by 69,000 last month, less than the most- pessimistic forecast in a Bloomberg News survey, after a revised 77,000 gain in April that was smaller than initially estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median estimate called for a 150,000 May advance. The jobless rate rose to 8.2 percent from 8.1 percent, while hours worked declined

Crossroads GPS v. "Obama-Claire"

On September 22, 2010, Claire McCaskill said on the Senate floor:

These are social welfare organizations, 501(c)(4)s, like Crossroads, which is one that sprung up. It has been the top spender. It hasn't been the Republican committees or the Democratic committees. The top spender in the Senate races is a group we have no idea what it is or who is writing the checks.

We have to realize they don't even have to file anything with the government, with the IRS, until February, March, April. How many people think these organizations are going to be around after November? Really? How naive are you?

Nearly two years later, Crossroads GPS is still around, as Bloomberg reports: 

It’s the quickest shorthand for understanding how Crossroads GPS, the committee inspired by Bush political strategist Karl Rove, is playing its well-financed hand in the 2012 elections — and not only the presidential race.

Crossroads is airing a TV ad in Missouri, where Democratic Claire McCaskill faces a serious challenge to her re-election in November, that opens with the question: “Obamacare? More like Obama-Claire, because Senator Claire McCaskill has voted with President Obama 90 percent of the time.”

Supporting the “New Majority Agenda,” the ad explains, requires ousting McCaskill — pictured alongside Obama at every turn of the 30-second spot. That agenda is Crossroads’ game-plan.

This is no new attack. Crossroads GPS has aired six ads in the Missouri race a total of 3,354 times, starting in July and counting through early May, according to New York-based Kantar Media’s CMAG, which monitors advertising. Four of the six ads included a picture of Obama and McCaskill together. 

Economic Clouds

In the past week, the media have asked whether Donald Trump's birtherism will hurt Mitt Romney.  That's silly.  There is no evidence that ordinary voters either know or care about Trump's comments.  Trump has "overshadowed" Romney only to the extent that reporters say that he has done so.  Such comments are what linguists call "performance utterances" or "performatives" -- they create social reality rather than just describe it.  One example is Trump's own trademark phrase, "You're fired."

Meanwhile, far more important news is coming out. CNBC reports:

Jobless claims rose last week, private employment growth disappointed while growth was less than originally reported in the first quarter, according to reports that provide few bright spots for the economy.

Private-sector jobs growth came in at a disappointingly weak 133,000 from April to May, according to a report from ADP and Macroeconomic Advisors that adds to a bleak outlook for employment.

A day before the government releases its report for nonfarm payrolls in May, the ADP report showed that job growth continues to slow.

Economists had expected the report to show nongovernment jobs grew by 150,000.
"This number could have some weather payback in it, but I think basically it confirms and reinforces the notion that there was a sharp deceleration of employment in the springtime months," Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisors, told CNBC's "Squawk Box."

Bloomberg reports:

The number of Americans signing contracts to buy previously owned homes fell in April by the most in a year, indicating the U.S. housing recovery remains uneven.

The index of pending home resales dropped 5.5 percent following a revised 3.8 percent gain the prior month, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 42 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for no change in the measure.

CNN reports:

Consumer confidence fell to a five-month low in May, according to a closely watched survey that showed Americans less optimistic about current labor market and business conditions, as well as the short-term outlook.

The survey released Tuesday by The Conference Board, a business research firm, showed an overall index reading of 64.9, down from 68.7 in April. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected confidence to tick up to 69.4 in the latest survey.

Stable Polls So Far

Gallup finds that Obama and Romney remain roughly tied.

The May 7-27 aggregate shows that Obama continues to do particularly well among blacks, Hispanics, and nonwhites more generally, as well as among Democrats, liberals, and those who are not religious. Romney does particularly well among Republicans, conservatives, those who are highly religious, non-Catholic Christians, those who are married, older voters, and whites. Complete trends by subgroup for rolling three-week periods, including sample sizes for each subgroup, are available each week on Gallup.com.

A Billion on the Outside

Although outside Democratic groups are having trouble raising funds, the GOP will be awash in outside money.  Politico reports:

Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress, according to officials familiar with the groups’ internal operations.

That total includes previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers, who are steering funding to build sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states. POLITICO has learned that Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections - twice what they had been expected to commit.

Just the spending linked to the Koch network is more than the $370 million that John McCain raised for his entire presidential campaign four years ago. And the $1 billion total surpasses the $750 million that Barack Obama, one of the most prolific fundraisers ever, collected for his 2008 campaign.

Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney, proved its potency by spending nearly $50 million in the primaries. Now able to entice big donors with a neck-and-neck general election, the group is likely to meet its new goal of spending $100 million more.

And American Crossroads and the affiliated Crossroads GPS, the groups that Rove and Ed Gillespie helped conceive and raise cash for, are expected to ante up $300 million, giving the two-year-old organization one of the election’s loudest voices.

“The intensity on the right is white-hot,” said Steven Law, president of American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. “We just can’t leave anything in the locker room. And there is a greater willingness to cooperate and share information among outside groups on the center-right.”

American Crossroads and Public Equity

The Hill reports:

The Republican super-PAC American Crossroads is trying to flip the script on the Obama campaign's repeated attacks on Mitt Romney's private-equity past.

American Crossroads, the outside spending group affiliated with Karl Rove, released a new Web video Tuesday blasting the president for his "failed investment strategies" with public funds, most notably the now-bankrupt solar company Solyndra.

"Obama's attacking private equity, but what's his record on public equity investing?" asks a narrator in the video.

The attack ad came on the same day that the Romney campaign revived GOP criticism of Obama's green-energy programs.