Daily Kos

HuffPo: ABC Debate Most "Scandalous"; Obama Main Target

by turneresq

Sun Apr 20, 2008 at 12:42:19 PM PDT

Since the "debate" on Wednesday, ABC has been in defense mode, considering the overwhelming criticism they have received. The Huffington post has done analysis of the four one-on-one debates between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and the results are very revealing.

Let's take a look at the analysis here:

Methodology:

I went through each of the four one-on-one contests between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, starting with CNN's debate way back on January 31, and cataloged every question, classifying them as follows:

Policy and expertise: In this category, I put any questions about a candidate's policy preferences or legislative record, as well as questions about a candidate's experience ("Neither one of you have ever run a business, so why should either of you be elected to be CEO of the country?").

Non-policy questions: Questions focused on politics, including electability and the role of superdelegates, as well as those about campaign management, such as releasing tax records or accepting public financing.

Scandal questions: Questions about hot-button, non-policy issues like Jeremiah Wright or Clinton's Bosnia trip. (Note: this category does not include follow-up questions on these issues given to the opposing candidate; ie. Clinton being asked about Wright, or Obama being asked about Bosnia.)

Results:

  1. ABC's debate was in a class of its own, with more scandal and non-policy questions than any other. ABC asked the most scandal questions, and both ABC and NBC devoted only half of their questions to policy issues. The CNN debates were dramatically more policy-focused. Here's a breakdown:

                          Policy   Non-Policy   Scandal  
CNN (1/31)             31          3           1
CNN (2/21)             23          5           2
NBC                       24          17          5
ABC                       32          14          13

  1. Barack Obama has received the overwhelming majority of scandal questions over the course of the four debates, by a margin of 17 to 4. Obama has fielded questions about his "bitter" remarks, his connections to 60s-era radical William Ayres, two questions about flag lapels, two questions about his alleged plagiarism of speeches, three questions on Louis Farrakhan, and eight about Jeremiah Wright. Clinton has received only four such questions -- two about her Bosnia trip, one about a photo of Obama in African garb that was linked to her campaign without evidence by the Drudge Report, and one over-the-top inquiry about Bill Clinton ("If your campaign can't control the former president now, what will it be like when you're in the White House?").

[snip]

  1. The debate famously mocked by Saturday Night Live was actually very favorable to Clinton. In the SNL rendition, CNN's February debate was a mix of aggressive, biting questions to Hillary Clinton and softballs to Barack Obama. In fact, the candidates received identical or virtually identical questions about Cuba policy, immigration, bilingualism, the economy, Iraq, and earmarks.

So it's obvious that not only was ABC's debate clearly more scandal-focused, but Obama has been the subject of the overwhelming number of "scandal" questions generally. I also found it interesting that the SNL-mocked debate was in general more fair to Clinton, as far as that goes. Note this is not a "scientific" analysis, but it is certainly enlightening insight into the questions that were asked and who they were targeted to. Take a look at the whole piece.

Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Media Bias, 2008, Primaries, Debates (all tags) :: Previous Tag Versions

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