Ahead of Jeb Bush announcing his 2016 presidential run on Monday, NBC’s Today and CBS This Morning hyped his effort to “regain some lost momentum” and overcome the “baggage” of his last name. In contrast, the two morning shows barely touched the problems facing Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the wake of her formal announcement on Saturday.
On Today, White House correspondent Chris Jansing asserted: “Today his [Bush’s] job is to deliver a speech that will help him regain some lost momentum...” The headline on screen read: “Jeb Bush Announcing Today; Hoping to Regain Momentum Amid Clinton Kick-Off.”
Jansing continued the report by declaring: “...it's not the campaign he expected it to be. There’s been a staff shake up and policy stumbles on Iraq that made donors nervous.”
Clinton’s announcement was only briefly mentioned: “After her weekend campaign kick-off, Hillary Clinton is back in the state she lost in 2008 for an Iowa house party, simulcast to 650 other watch parties around the country. And at her rally, she called on her old boss to negotiate a better trade deal.”
Jansing noted: “...the challenge for both members of America’s political dynasties. How to liberate themselves from the past, and at 62 and 67, embody the future.”
On This Morning, correspondent Nancy Cordes observed that Bush’s “famous last name” has “been such a boon to fundraising but that also comes with baggage.” She added: “It's a challenge he's struggled with in recent months. First, he unveiled a list of foreign policy advisors that looked a lot like his brother’s inner circle....Then it took him several tries to explain whether he, too, would have invaded Iraq in 2003 based on what he knows now.”
On Clinton, Cordes announced that the Democratic frontrunner held “her first campaign rally” over the weekend. A soundbite ran of Clinton’s speech: “You know by now that I've been called many things by many people. Quitter is not one of them.”
Later on the program, Face the Nation host John Dickerson offered his analysis of Bush: “And some of the people that are judging him are the donors and the insiders in the Republican field and they wonder why he hasn't broken out of the pack faster and they also wonder about a little of his rustiness and some of his stumbles.”
Co-host Norah O’Donnell then asked about Clinton: “She’s made some news by siding with the House Democrats on that trade bill against President Obama. That will probably play well with Democratic Party voters, right?” Dickerson agreed:
It will, although it will play well with them because that’s a position that there's a lot of skepticism of these trade deals in the Democratic base. There was a lot of skepticism about her because she wasn't taking a position. On the one hand, she's presenting herself as a fighter. The word seems to come up every other sentence from her campaign or from her and yet here was a fight and she was on the sidelines. So she has come off the sidelines a bit and it cleans up that messiness as well.
No mention was made of Clinton being in favor of the trade deal as secretary of state.
Dickerson gushed over her speech: “I mean she was on the one hand saying, ‘I'm a three-dimensional candidate,’ talking about her mother, her biography, but she was also, it was very heavy on policy....Her speech at times sounded like a state of the union speech, full of lots of policy...”
In another segment, pollster Frank Luntz asked a focus group of New Hampshire Republican primary voters about Bush’s vulnerabilities and if they were “tiring of political dynasties.” Clinton was only briefly discussed.
In March, Luntz led a focus group of voters discussing Clinton, but completely ignored the e-mail scandal plaguing the former secretary of state.
Unlike Today and This Morning, ABC’s Good Morning America actually treated Bush and Clinton equally, seeing similar challenges facing both candidates. Co-host George Stephanopoulos explained: “Each of these candidate has to deal with the legacy issue.”
Political analyst Matt Dowd replied: “Yeah. They have to deal with the Jurassic World problem, right? That most people see them as dinosaurs in the past, from the past. They're going to have to deal with it. Jeb has to separate from his father and brother. And Hillary has to separate from her husband and the past.” Stephanopoulos interjected: “And also President Obama as well.” Dowd added: “Not a third term of President Obama.”
