Why a journalism class leans toward Obama
Cory Bergman February 26th, 2008
This is fascinating. A University of Washington journalism class is aggressively blogging the 2008 campaign. They’re attending primaries and caucuses, cameras and laptops in hand. The professor, David Domke, says he’s noticed a lean towards Obama among the students in part because of the way Obama’s campaign staff respected the bloggers. “The Obama campaign treated us like pros — they called us back within minutes, set up interviews, got us press passes, went out of their way to make the campaign accessible,” Domke writes. “The Clinton campaign, in contrast, didn’t return a single phone call, didn’t provide press access, and did virtually nothing to encourage our coverage.” Domke concludes: “The Clinton campaign has made the case that Obama is nothing but rhetoric; he’s supposedly all words, while she’s all action. Our experiences showed us that their campaigns — at least in Seattle — were exactly the opposite. In their treatment of my students, Clinton’s campaign was all talk, while Obama’s was all walk.”
Meanwhile: Obama is establishing himself as the candidate who keeps the most distance from the national media, reports Politico.
14 Comments Add your own
1. Jackie De Vore | February 26th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I am shocked at the “fauning over Obama” of white male, supposedly intelligent, who think that he is the greatest thing since sliced bread………….when are men in the USA going to EVER recognize that women are equal; and have intelligence that should be measured against those who have no experience to run our country
2. JC | February 26th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Jackie: Your first mistake is assuming that it’s about black or white, male or female. White males are going for Obama for the same reasons black males and females, young people across the country, etc. are voting for him: because they like what he stands for. it has nothing to do with his being a man. If white males were so afraid of someone other than ourselves, we would have voted for Edwards.
Hilary Clinton, put simply, is an inferior candidate in almost every way. And, surprisingly, she’s run a very poor campaign over the past year. Her entire strategy assumed that the nomination would be a cakewalk, wrapped up by Super Tuesday. When that failed, she at first refused to change course, continuing the ridiculous “I have more experience than Obama”, which doesn’t work in a national campaign against McCain, and the arrogant “I’m the only one ready on day one”, which doesn’t resonate with most people who know better. And then, in total desperation, instead of accepting defeat gracefully, she turns to completely unfounded attacks against Obama, comparing him to Karl Rove and Bush, meanwhile accusing him of republican-style attacks against her.
Desperation is not an attractive quality in a candidate. I just hope when she loses either Texas or Ohio (at least one is bound to go to Obama) she realizes that the momentum is against her, the country has clearly spoken, and that it’s time to hang it up for the good of the party.
To reiterate my point: I’m more than happy to vote for a woman president. Just not that particular woman at a time when I have better choices available to me. Take Obama out of this race, and I most likely would vote for her in November. But that’s a false choice. Obama is here, and he’s very likely to be our next president.
3. TR | February 26th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
To the original point … one small observation … while working on a local-focused campaign post for our hyperlocal Seattle-neighborhood website, I tried to find Seattle-specific information on the Obama and Clinton websites. For Obama, it was easy to find (plus several supporters in the neighborhood we cover had sent us links to sites they set up); for Clinton, there was a pulldown on her page labeled STATES — and Washington state wasn’t even listed on it! I believe it was a list of Super Tuesday states but that wasn’t clear in the navigation; I tried their search, I tried Google Search, just couldn’t find Seattle-specific Clinton info, finally gave up.
4. TR | February 26th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Oh BTW, I should have clarified the time frame - that was a few weeks back, before Super Tuesday (and the WA caucuses that followed) - by that time, both campaigns should have had well-oiled organizing machines gearing up for campaigning here, but only one did.
5. DW | February 26th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Tip O’Neill said it best .. all politics is local.
The best of them work the local precincts. Word-of-mouth and classic political organization does the trick.
And well-done web sites and other net-based information help a hell of a lot - and it’s money well spent besides on donuts, expensive hotel rooms and tv commercial time.
bama’s folks seem to have the hang of it in the primary and caucus states … and are really working the locals throughout Texas and Ohio as I write.
A week and a couple hours in the future from this posting, we’ll see how it all works out.
6. tdc | February 26th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
i’m still trying to figure out how he didn’t get even one vote in harlem.
expect hillary to will both… otherwise the tv ad money runs dry.
7. tdc | February 26th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
‘expect hillary to win both’…
sorry
8. Steve Garfield | February 26th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I had the same experience with the Obama campaign in Boston and also saw lots of students with press passes at events, which lead the established media to ask, “who are all these kids?”
Nice job Obama campaign.
9. Jaiden | February 26th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I work at a local TV station and had the same experience with both campaigns. The Obama group would return calls, keep us in the loop and help with our questions. The Hillary camp never even responded to our requests.
It definitely left a sour taste in my mouth.
10. discreet_chaos | February 27th, 2008 at 4:15 am
Offtopic, but apparently MSNBC wasn’t prepared for the interest in last night’s debate because the netstream was horrendous and nearly unwatchable due to all of the buffering.
Thus far, I’ve watched every debate online and unless there was something uniquely special about my connection last night (which didn’t effect later Hulu viewing), the problem was definitely on MSNBC’s end and I’m going to assume that they were overwhelmed by the interest.
11. Colin Principe | February 27th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
@Jackie De Vore - Perhaps we’ve evolved to the point where it is acceptable to not vote for the careerist politician who expects a democratic coronation just because she’s a woman.
12. oakling | February 27th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Smart move, Obamers. That’s one of the things I appreciate about his campaign: it’s run intelligently.
13. laurie | February 28th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
i’m a white woman, from arkansas even, and i’m voting obama.
i’ve lived over half of my life under clinton rule (governor then president) and i don’t see myself reaping any of the rewards those 16 years should have produced.
hillary’s mismanagement of campaign funds, lack of budgeting skills, and now desparation has completely turned me off.
14. jenniforHILLARY | March 4th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
To all those sheep, to all those woman-haters, to all those darn greedy Republicans, SHE WON ALL THREE–GO HILLARY–ALL THE WAY TO the WHITE HOUSE!!!!
Proud to be a Texan and even prouder to have voted for HILLARY CLINTON!!!
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