politics

Fox Looks Into Future, Concludes It’s Cloudy

Fox News weighs in on the favorites in the 2008 presidential race, and has a hard time making up its mind.
August 25, 2006

As 2008 creeps ever closer, speculation about presidential contenders will surely heat up, especially after November’s midterm elections. But for now, with nearly a year and a half to go until the big ’08 showdown, the picture is as muddled as ever.

That was the radical message of a FoxNews.com analysis on the prospective Democratic field yesterday — a waffling, 1,700-word crystal ball-gazing exercise which neither settled nor really said anything.

“Analysts say no consensus has been reached on who will be best candidate,” read the groundbreaking blurb promoting the story on Fox News’s homepage last evening.

“After five years of war and two failed attempts at the White House, Democrats appear no closer to consensus on the attributes of their ideal presidential candidate in 2008. Will he or she have to be anti-war, hawkish on defense or a little of both?” Kelley Beaucar Vlahos began her story.

Next came a mention of how Ned Lamont’s Connecticut primary victory “produced analyses at length about how the Democratic Party might have to consider a left-of-center anti-war candidate for its next presidential run,” followed by the piece’s first flip-flop, as Beaucar Vlahos noted an ensuing poll which gave Joe Lieberman an 11-point lead for the general election.

“These mixed messages put Democrats right where they started,” Beaucar Vlahos wrote, “pacing back and forth wondering how public perceptions of the war in Iraq and the overall War on Terror, as well as congressional Republicans’ and President Bush’s handling of it, should shape their overall message and the one belonging to the 2008 nominee.”

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After producing the startling idea that “the favored candidates of the grassroots, the more ideological base of the party that is apt to vote in greater numbers in the primaries, may be unelectable on Election Day,” Beaucar Vlahos mused, “Paradoxically, theories vary on whether New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, who has yet to announce her long-anticipated run for the presidency, can win the nomination or the general election, despite her seemingly pragmatic approach to politics and competitive numbers in hypothetical polls.” In other words, it’s unclear what will happen.

In order, we’re told that Clinton “is considered her party’s frontrunner” and can win the nomination, but not the presidency; that she can win the presidency (“She can be perceived as anti-war but at the same time be perceived as strong on defense, and that is what I think is going to take to win the general election”); and that, because of the longstanding doubts of “the same activist base of the party that helped to propel Lamont to victory,” she might not be able to win the nomination after all.

Yet, “In most polling, Clinton remains on top. An August Gallup Poll found that a majority of Americans believe Clinton has the best chance of beating a Republican in 2008.” So Hillary can win the presidency! Yet other polls found that Clinton would lose to Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, and that Al Gore “would do better — but still lose — against Giuliani or McCain.” So Hillary cannot win the presidency.

Back to the it’s-unclear-what-will-happen theme: “It’s anyone’s guess whether or not ‘a fertile environment’ exists on the Democratic side ‘to have a governor come out of nowhere, to fit the bill, the same way that Clinton and Carter did,'” a college professor told Beaucar Vlahos, who added, “Clinton was governor of Arkansas when he was nominated in 2000.” (Slight problem here — Clinton was nominated in 1992, not 2000.)

And on it went, as past Democratic losers were given a bright outlook, then a dark one, and as Sen. Barack Obama was considered “as a rising star with potential presidential appeal” (maybe Obama can win the nomination?), then discarded due to lack of seasoning (so maybe not).

The takeaway message was “that all candidates are pondering whether to tailor their messages to the current anti-war mood in the party or whether to think ahead to the general election without knowing what voters might want to hear in 2008.”

So, uh, it’s unclear what will happen — news you can get “ONLY ON FOX.” Sadly, given the performance of the press during the last few election cycles, you can probably look forward to more of the same from the political press corps in the coming months.

Edward B. Colby was a writer at CJR Daily.