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Articles by Walter Shapiro | Email the Author

 

1. Swing States Project

   What if there are fewer polls in 2016?

   November 27, 2012 04:00 PM

   As a feud, it does not rise to the level of Lyndon Johnson versus Bobby Kennedy or even Jack Benny’s radio war with Fred Allen. But, still, anyone organizing a post-election panel discussion might be wise to put... Continue reading

2. Swing States Project

   Hope and change in unlikely places

   November 16, 2012 02:50 PM

   Channeling the Lord High Executioner in The Mikado, I’ve got a little list of those parts of 2012 coverage that none of them be missed: Over-wrought chroniclers of the Iowa Straw Poll. Gullible reporters beguiled by poll numbers... Continue reading

3. Swing States Project

   What happened, anyway?

   November 13, 2012 11:12 AM

   Shortly after 11 p.m. (Eastern) on Election Night—with the polls still open only in Alaska—Mitt Romney aides were pleading with Fox News not to call Ohio for Barack Obama.That delicious detail, buried in a New York magazine article by... Continue reading

4. Swing States Project

   Three questions about campaign coverage

   November 2, 2012 03:00 PM

   COLUMBUS, OH — As America lurches towards Election Day like a ravaged water-logged creature from a 1950s horror flick, the general mood is less anticipation than a desperate craving for the nation’s quadrennial adventure in democracy to be over. At... Continue reading

5. Swing States Project

   The most potent spin: lies campaigns tell themselves

   October 26, 2012 03:00 PM

   DENVER — The dirty secret of campaign journalism for the next 11 days is that there is no way for conscientious reporters to give readers what they crave most of all—advance knowledge of who is going to win the election.... Continue reading

6. Swing States Project

   How could voters still be undecided? Try asking them

   October 19, 2012 01:23 PM

   They may be the most publicly maligned minority group in America, a subset of the electorate that is ridiculed with impunity by everyone from TV pundits to online columnists. I am referring, of course, to the people who are the... Continue reading

7. Swing States Project

   Time to head to the track

   October 11, 2012 11:00 AM

   DES MOINES — These days, the phrase “horse-race journalism” is often accompanied by the same sneering tone that 1950s intellectuals employed when they curled their lips around the dread word “television.” Many of the lofty critiques of the shallow... Continue reading

8. Swing States Project

   Debate advice: Turn off Twitter

   October 3, 2012 06:55 AM

   As we get ready for the Demolition Derby in Denver (aka the Mile High Mud Wrestle), I want to return for a moment to the golden days of campaign reporting when debate clichés were still being created the old-fashioned way,... Continue reading

9. Swing States Project

   Mitt-o-phobia

   September 21, 2012 11:00 AM

   Call it the Curse of Clint. Ever since Clint “Empty Chair” Eastwood stepped onto the Republican convention stage, Mitt Romney has been saddled with the kind of scathing media coverage that normally requires a mug shot or a goofy appearance... Continue reading

10. Swing States Project

    How super are the super PACs?

    September 14, 2012 11:15 AM

    Like a crime boss in a pinstriped suit who is now hailed as a pillar of the community, super PACS have gone legitimate. At the Democratic Convention in Charlotte, according to Politico, both Obama campaign manager Jim Messina... Continue reading

11. Swing States Project

    After Charlotte: baffled by the horse race

    September 7, 2012 10:54 AM

    CHARLOTTE — During Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, I was simultaneously live-blogging for Yahoo News, tweeting my reactions (“The Lincoln line ‘...the world will little note nor long remember...’ so far applies to this speech”) into the... Continue reading

12. Swing States Project

    Read? Listen? Who has the time?

    August 31, 2012 06:50 AM

    TAMPA—Sitting in my motel room Thursday on the fringes of Tampa, maybe 20 miles and three weather systems away from the convention site, I am surrounded by enough newsprint to equip a Broadway revival of The Front Page. These are... Continue reading

13. Swing States Project

    In defense of convention coverage

    August 27, 2012 11:00 AM

    For me, the malady known as Convention Anxiety is a quadrennial affliction that begins around March of every presidential election year. The initial symptom is a cold sweat around four in the morning as I peer into the existential... Continue reading

14. Swing States Project

    What makes Mitt tick?

    August 20, 2012 06:50 AM

    The faster-than-a-tweet, fleeter-than-a-sound-bite pace of the presidential campaign upends our basic conceptions of time and duration. It is disconcerting to realize that less than 10 days ago only a few cognoscenti knew anything about Paul Ryan’s abs or... Continue reading

15. Swing States Project

    The best political listening tour

    August 10, 2012 03:00 PM

    It is the paradox of political journalism: The most important aspect of a presidential campaign—how flesh-and-blood voters make up their minds—is the least covered and understood. Sure, reporters devoutly worship at the altar of polls and study their gyrations with... Continue reading

16. Swing States Project

    Why did Mitt Romney really go to Israel?

    August 3, 2012 11:03 AM

    With Mitt Romney in Israel last weekend, it seemed like the irresistible sidebar. So news organizations like The Washington Post and Politico gushed (or kvelled, in Yiddish) over the all-important Jewish vote. The emblematic Politico article by Jonathan... Continue reading

17. Swing States Project

    How to handle oppo research?

    July 20, 2012 11:20 AM

    For the political cognoscenti, the dominant story line in July has been the Barack Obama campaign’s mastery of the subterranean arts of opposition research to mar Mitt Romney’s Bain chance. As Time’s Mark Halperin, the co-author of <a href=http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/game-change-john-heilemann/1100560037... Continue reading

18. Swing States Project

    The good old days of the Nixon campaign

    July 13, 2012 03:00 PM

    Maybe it’s the summer doldrums, or the Barack Obama campaign’s continual pain-from-Bain refrain, or the speculative no-news-here if-clauses surrounding Mitt Romney’s vice presidential search. But whatever the cause, I am caught in a wave of nostalgia for the old-fashioned innocence... Continue reading

19. Swing States Project

    Why is ‘issue coverage’ so boring—and often wrong?

    July 5, 2012 11:10 AM

    As we sipped red wine in Washington last week, Republican pollster David Winston suddenly asked me, “Why doesn’t the media write more about issues that are of central concern to the voters? Why don’t they write more about candidate differences... Continue reading

20. Swing States Project

    Embracing the myth of the campaign wizard, again

    June 21, 2012 05:18 PM

    Maybe it began with the lionization in the press of the Irish Mafia that helped elect John Kennedy in 1960. Or maybe it dates all the way back to reporters’ fascination with Franklin Roosevelt’s first campaign manager, Jim... Continue reading

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