Campaign Desk

The Anti-Chris Matthews Vote

And how it sparked some media soul-searching (though not from Matthews)

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As my colleague Gal Beckerman observed earlier today, with last night’s New Hampshire victory, Hillary beat the press.

Meanwhile, the press spent some time last night beating itself.

Here is a sampling of the sort of mild self-flagellation on display last night on MBSNC (the channel I happened to be watching) where many of the network’s familiar faces-with the exception of Chris Matthews-seemed to be doing some form of soul-searching for having, as Tom Brokaw put it, prematurely and sometimes excitedly “end[ed] the Clinton era,” for having been so sure of New Hampshire’s outcome hours or even days before the polls closed. (Sounds familiar, no?) Often, it seemed to be Brokaw gently apologizing for his onetime peers. (Maybe that’s what gravitas means).

At 10:30pm:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: …Yes a lot of people have a lot of explaining to do…[New Hampshire voters] have almost en masse decided this goes on from here. And this is how we feel. Perhaps predicated on the media coverage they have seen…

Minutes later:

TOM BROKAW: Let me read the headlines of the last twenty-four hours here. So yesterday, a picture of Hillary on the front page of the Boston Herald. “Panic” in the New York Post with Hillary. The end of the Clinton era-a lot of pundits saying that on this channel and all the other channels as well… all of that conventional wisdom was turned on its head. This is one of the great triumphs in recent years in American presidential politics. Hillary Clinton is back. And the rest of us who were saying out loud that this is not going to happen, you know, we’ve got a lot of explaining to do.

KEITH OLBERMAN: Of course, one lesson from headline succeeding headline succeeding headline is that we should wait for all the headlines rather than just pick the one that has happened the most recently…

And later still:

BROKAW: We don’t have to get in the business of making judgments before the polls have closed and trying to stampede, in effect, the process. Look, I’m not just picking on us, it’s part of the culture in which we live these days. I think that the people out there are going to begin to make judgments about us, if they haven’t already, if we don’t begin to temper that temptation to constantly try to get ahead of what the voters are deciding…

CHRIS MATTHEWS: You know, Tom, there are whole universities that depend almost entirely for their identity, their brand on their polling operations, and it seems like so many people depend on getting out an early estimate of what is about to come…

There are also whole cable television shows, whole cable news personalities, even, “that depend almost entirely for their identity, their brand… on getting out an early estimate of” - that is, speculating and pontificating on - “what is about to come.”

Here is the closest Matthews came to contrition last night:

MATTHEWS: If [Hillary] wins tonight, she has got a leg up on the predictors, on the pundits, the people like me. Who were reading the polls for three days now and believing them. She’s able to say, not only am I the Comeback Kid, I’m the victor. That’s better than the Comeback Kid. And Barack Obama, I will still say, has given the most inspiring speeches I have heard…Surpises, surprises. You know, politics is, as they say, phenomenal. It is not predictable.

MIKE BARNICLE, Boston Herald: Well, politics is incredible and the emotion of politics is incredible. It proves once again you have to play the games, you have to have the elections…

Yes, you do have to “have the elections.”

By far the most dramatic self-flagellatory exchange of the night was the following:

PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC analyst: This is an astonishing development. Look, the pollsters were dead wrong. They were predicting 7-8 to a dozen points for Obama. The press was dead wrong. We had virtually canonized Obama and said he had been born in Bethlehem and now you’ve got a race where Hillary Clinton is running three or four points ahead of this fella. Something has happened. There is a hidden vote here somewhere, or my guess is this: The New Hampshire voters said, look, the press has been telling us Obama’s the second coming. We don’t think so. The press has been telling us she’s gone, and the women came out and said, no, she’s not. What New Hampshire did was stand up and body slam the national establishment, the press corp., the pollsters, the whole bunch that came in here as well as Barack Obama’s folks who must be in a state of shock tonight.

RACHEL MADDOW, Air America: Pat, I will tell you that on the influential -perhaps influential on the left — Web site, talking points memo today, do you want to know who they’re blaming for women voters breaking for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama? Who they’re blaming for this late showing for Hillary Clinton? They’re blaming Chris Matthews. People are citing specifically Chris not only for his own views but also as a symbol for what the mainstream media…

MATTHEWS: What Web site?

MADDOW: Talkingpointsmemo.com. It’s cited anecdotally…

MATTHEWS: My influence over American politics looms over the people! I’m overwhelmed myself.

MADDOW: People feel that the media is piling on Hillary Clinton. They’re coming to her defense with their votes…

So was there, in fact, what amounts to an anti-Chris Matthews vote that emerged in New Hampshire? And if so, why might Hillary Clinton have been the beneficiary?

Here are a couple of thoughts on those questions. And Matthews himself provided some clues last night as to why an anti-Matthews voter might be motivated to pull the lever for Clinton.

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Comments

chiron

Fri 11 Jan 2008 09:30 AM

I don't understand why some affluent progressives are so hostile to Hillary. They criticize her on cosmetic grounds, as though we're all still in high school--"she's too stiff, she too boring, she too ambitious, blah, blah, blah." But she has devoted her entire political life to the cause of people who need help. She bridges the gap between the powerful and those who are struggling. The real proof of this is in who actually votes for her. The republicans hate her so much precisely because she threatens them with real, affirmative, assertive change. Obama gets the support of the trendy and the affluent. I think of him as the iPhone of politics--a marketing phenomenon, looks good, but doesn't really work so well at what it is supposed to do.

Hillary continues to get the support of people who are actually struggling by wide margins. In the early 1990s, she was devoting herself to getting universal health care for the uninsured. It wasn't a big issue then. She was younger then than Obama is now, and she is one of the reasons that universal health care may become a reality. That may not matter too much to you if you're affluent, have a good job with health insurance, and someone else cleans your apartment. But for people who are struggling, Hillary is the real deal.

Catch22

Fri 11 Jan 2008 11:27 AM

The quote of Chris Mathews at the end of this story leads to one brutally honest conclusion: At least when it comes to Hillary Clinton, Chris Mathews is a blithering blind idiot who demonstrates he does not deserve the position that his employer provides to him.

The assertion is not only deeply insulting to Clinton and the thousands of voting New Yorkers, but fundamentally ridiculous and without any basis whatsoever. What in the world was he thinking.

If you give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that this was just a complete verbal burp on his part, then why has he not apologized to Hillary Clinton and his audience and admitted the total stupidity of his assertion.

It has no basis in fact. Hillary Clinton is Sentor of New York because hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers voted for in an election she won by a landslide. Chris Mathew's hypothesis has not basis in fact. There is no evidence that anyone voted for her for the reason he claimed let alone thousands and if anything this personal embarrasment harmed her ability to win if anything else.

Chris Mathews should apologize and his employer should rethink whether someone who is so blinded by personal hatred should represent them on their program.

Jack

Sat 12 Jan 2008 01:51 PM

Chris Matthews is undeserving of even critical review of his foolish brand of political commentary. I wouldn't even use the word analysis for fear of misleading others concerning the nature of his work. He plays the bufoon for an audience that seems to enjoy the absurdity of his behavior. His faux emotional reactions, his absurd pontification of his ideas, which are yet more absurd, plays to the inclination of too many viewers who apparently are titillated by Mr. Mathews antics. The only rational aspect of his entire career is that he's payed to play the image of the fool, which he does so well.

johnie2xs

Sun 13 Jan 2008 11:12 AM

Matthews is not the only one. Joe Scarborough is as bad, if not worse. He's glib and snarky and represents nothing close to the art of dispassionate commentary. Besides he has a questionable past which in myt mind disqualifies him from having any position in which he can sway public opinion. MSNBC has a great prospect, in David Schuster, and continually fails to take full advantage of it. He is decidedly deserving of a lead spot, but for some obscure reason gets overlooked. Check into Scarborough yourself and tell me why he has his spot.
http://www.allhatnocattle.net/congressman_joe_scarborough.htm

AhmNee

Tue 15 Jan 2008 02:56 PM

I don't like Clinton for president because she's vague and uninformative about her plans for office. While she gives lip service to some issues, she offers nothing substantial as to how she intends to accomplish those goals.

She has an awful record on media censorship.

She's entirely too beholden to corporations and special interests.