Campaigns & Elections

Conservatives and liberals often agree that the media have played an outsized role in making Donald Trump the Republican presidential frontrunner but differ about how they’ve done it. (Here’s a view from the right.) Lefty Esquire blogger Pierce argues that the list of offenders in this regard is long; in fact, it includes every journalist who’s failed to point out over the last few decades that…

All three network morning shows on Tuesday hyped Barack Obama’s “lengthy indictment” of 2016's “ugly” primaries. The President, who has lashed out at Ted Cruz in the past, gave a speech on Monday where he lectured, “The number one question I am getting as I travel around the world is what is happening in America?” CBS This Morning’s Major Garrett trumpeted, “President Obama delivered a lengthy…

On Monday's Last Word, MSNBC's Tony Dokoupil inadvertently revealed that his network restrains itself from pressing Donald Trump too hard. Dokoupil reported on conservative radio host Charlie Sykes's "incredibly blistering" interview of Trump earlier in the day, and underlined that the personality "knew it was going to be a one and done. He does not have to go back to Donald Trump ever again.…

In the first full weeknight since The National Enquirer tabloid published its unsubstantiated piece alleging that GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz has been engaging in extramarital affairs, late-night comedy hosts Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel spent portions of their Monday monologues promoting the smear as legitimate and wondering how any woman could be interested in Cruz.

Promoting her endorsement of socialist Bernie Sanders on the Monday edition of MSNBC’s All In, liberal actress Susan Sarandon proclaimed that she’s backing Sanders because she “really want[s] to be on the right side of history” and not with Hillary Clinton or anyone who’s “tak[en] any money from fracking or Monsanto or, you know Super PACs or Wall Street or big farm.”

Clinton campaign advisor Joel Benenson's recent whining about how "negative" the "tone" was from the Bernie Sanders campaign prompted an incredulous reaction from NBC's Kasie Hunt. 

On Monday night, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC found it pertinent to keep their viewers in the dark of stories from the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post that each provided new information on the massive scale of the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server scandal as she continues her presidential campaign.

Who says that there can't be occasional agreements across the partisan divide? The free-market, liberty-loving editorial board at Investor's Business Daily and a Bernie Sanders-supporting columnist at the Huffingon Post agree on one thing: Hillary Clinton should withdraw from the presidential race. Okay, IBD wants her to "suspend," while HuffPo's H.A. Goodman says she should "concede." Both…

According to Good Morning America’s Matt Dowd, it really doesn’t matter if Ted Cruz or Donald Trump win the Republican primary. Neither can beat Hillary Clinton. While discussing the National Enquirer’s sketchy claims about Cruz, the ABC political analyst allowed that Clinton is “vulnerable.” But he concluded of the GOP primary: “It actually almost puts the Republicans in a place where they can't…

Sunday's MediaBuzz on Fox News Channel critiqued the media's attention on the National Enquirer's cover story about multiple alleged affairs involving Senator Ted Cruz. Howard Kurtz noted that "the dilemma for the press here is whether to run with these unproven allegations." The Daily Caller's Gayle Trotter asserted that the press "shouldn't run with it, because the story itself shows that the…

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski had a jolly old time mocking Ted Cruz on today's Morning Joe. After playing a clip of Cruz refusing to say whether he'd support Trump given The Donald's attack on his wife, Joe imagined Cruz rehearsing his words before a mirror. Scarborough went on to approvingly cite David Axelrod, who had said that Cruz seems "staged" even when defending the honor of his…

For the past month, the conventional wisdom about the U.S. economy has been that consumer spending and "(not really) robust" job growth will continue to prop up the economy, even as weaknesses in manufacturing, trade and other areas continue to present problems. President Obama bragged in early March that the economy is "pretty darned good now." Today, the first of those two pillars got pulled.…

Despite the fact that there’s a complete lack of solid sourcing in the sleazy National Enquirer allegations against Ted Cruz, all three networks on Monday morning reported on the story again, offering an additional three minutes and 44 seconds. This is on top of 11 minutes and 43 seconds devoted to the sketchy claims from Friday through Sunday. In total, the ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening…

Conservatives have objected in droves to a remark President Obama made this past week during his visit to Argentina. Addressing a gathering of young adults, Obama said, “In the past there’s been a sharp division…between capitalist and communist or socialist…but I think for your generation, you should be practical and just choose from what works.” The right’s hostile response, contended The…