Campaign Watch

On Monday, "Good Morning America" kicked off a week-long train tour Across America with a fawning look at the younger generation of the Kennedy family, a clan that reporter Claire Shipman gushed is "the closest thing we have in this country to political royalty." The train journey, which is intended to see what Americans across the country really think about the upcoming presidential election,…

Where Charles Gibson's 2007 interview with Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) "was one part This is Your Life, one part Oprah Winfrey," McCain running mate Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) faced a "harsh interrogation" with the ABC anchor in "total attack mode," MRC Communications Director Seton Motley told Fox News Channel's Megyn Kelly on the September 15 edition of "America'…

In a Sunday Washington Post hit piece on Sarah Palin, “As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin Cut Own Duties, Left Trail of Bad Blood,” reporter Alec MacGillis took this inadvertently humorous shot at the growth of Wasilla during her years as Mayor, an observation that could be made just as well about many booming suburban and ex-urban areas of the lower 48:   The light hand of government is evident in the…

Speaking of “dishonesty” in McCain's TV ads, on Fox News Sunday Brit Hume pointed out Barack “Obama goes around claiming he's going to cut the taxes of 95 percent of the public, which is literally impossible” since “40 percent of American taxpayers don't pay any income tax,” but that hasn't stopped ABC (directly) and CBS (implicitly) in recent days from advancing that Obama claim as fact. Charles…

The New York Times is clearly in full meltdown mode concerning the popularity of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, and is having a hard time covering up its obvious state of panic.In its popular Sunday edition, the Gray Lady published four hit pieces about the Alaska Governor: a 3,100-word article prominently placed on the front page; two scathing columns by Frank Rich and Maureen…

On Sunday, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell noticed in passing an obvious example of front-page Obama favoritism in the Post. On Thursday, the huge McCain-Palin rally in suburban Fairfax, Virginia, with an estimated crowd of 23,000 reported in the story, was bizarrely placed on the front page of the Metro section. On June 6, the Post put an Obama rally in Virginia at the Nissan Pavilian…

Democratic VP nominee Joe Biden's Friday release of his tax returns embarrassingly revealed, according to a Bloomberg item in Saturday's Boston Globe, that Biden and his wife have, over the past ten years, donated a piddling “two-tenths of 1 percent” of their income to charities, but Saturday's Washington Post article didn't mention that and instead allocated six of ten paragraphs to how “…

With “Where's the Fight?” on screen under video of a man in New Hampshire who pushed Barack Obama (“When and how are you going to start fighting back?”), Katie Couric teased Friday's CBS Evening News: “Supporters of Barack Obama are frustrated and letting him know it.” Couric set up the story by highlighting how “an Obama campaign official sent out a memo saying 'today is the first day of the…

ABC's Charlie Gibson continues to receive poor reviews for his obvious attempt to perform a hatchet job on Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.One of the harshest assessments of Gibson's performance came from syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer Saturday who also took the opportunity to bash the New York Times for misrepresenting some of the specifics of the interview in order to…

In portions of Charles Gibson's third interview with Sarah Palin aired on Friday's 20/20 and Nightline, but not earlier on World News, Gibson demanded to know why she and John McCain “keep saying” Barack Obama will raise taxes when he says he won't, followed up her wish that Roe v Wade be overturned by -- in a question left out of the ABCNews.com transcript -- contending “it's a critical issue…

In Charles Gibson's third interview session with Sarah Palin, conducted at her home in Wasilla and featured on Friday's World News, Gibson asserted “we've got a very sick economy,” pressed her to list how she'd change Bush economic policy, insisted she concede “it's now pretty clearly documented you supported that bridge before you opposed it” (and to defend Alaska's continued earmark requests),…

On Friday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith talked to Rudy Giuliani about Sarah Palin’s performance in an interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson on Thursday’s World News and Giuliani observed: "The whole issue of whether she knows world affairs or not, these are questions that were never asked of Barack Obama, never asked of him to this day." A visibly upset Smith vigorously denied such bias: "…

New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney's front-page story on Friday, "Obama Raises Level of Attack As Party Frets," tipped its hand on one part of Barack Obama campaign's strategy: Relying on turnout from its loyal supporters in the press. By every indication, Mr. Obama's aides underestimated the impact that Mr. McCain's choice of Ms. Palin would have on the race. Mr. Obama and his campaign have…