The Kicker

Ever wondered how campaign reporters spend their time while watching the presidential debates? Pretty much the same way you do. Dana Milbank explains. [h/t Michael Calderone]

There’s been a decent amount of coverage of tiny Iceland over the last couple of weeks, as the country’s banking system and economy have gone to ground. But nothing that I’ve read is as mournful and poetic as this excellent Wall Street Journal piece by Charles Forelle: For the banks, growing was easy. They could […]

Let’s lose the pie chart scorecards, CNN

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews after the debate last night: Coming up, we go to The Spin Room — I hate that name — to get, well, the spin from both sides. And we may get some truth… Don’t hate “that name,” hate “that game.” Apparently Matthews is offended by the name of the Room but not […]

The award for the best use of “Joe the Plumber” in a morning-after-debate headline could belong to… Barron’s. “Plumber Takes Center Stage As We Go Down Drain”

Sen. Obama warned supporters at a fundraiser this morning in Manhattan: For those of you who are feeling giddy or cocky or think this is all set, I just have two words for you: New Hampshire. I’ve been in these positions before when we were favored, and the press starts getting carried away and we […]

Time‘s Joe Klein explains why political pundits (and he uses “we” in the explanation) had such a different-seeming insta-reaction to last night’s debate than did “regular” people polled (with some pundits concluding something like McCain had best debate yet and many people polled concluding something like, Obama “won.”). In part: Journalism is, naturally, about the […]

Yesterday, Clint and I were wondering aloud whether CNN might dress its campaign reporter like a local, in typical Long Island-wear, in order to better cover the final presidential debate on location at Hofstra University. CNN has, after all, done this sort of method reporting before (Ali Velshi in a ten gallon hat down at […]

As Joe The Plumber enjoys his 15 minutes, would it be too much to ask that some of that time be devoted to fair-minded determinations of how the candidates’ respective tax and health care plans would affect people like Joe? How about to finding out roughly how many Americans are in situations roughly similar to […]

While “Joe” (as in, The Plumber) was a frequently-used word during last night’s debate, “cool” is a frequently-used word in post-debate news headlines (h/t/ Eric Boehlert), employed by at least the following newspapers to describe Obama’s debate performance. “Aggressive Underdog vs. Cool Counterpuncher,” Washington Post “McCain Brings Heat, Obama Stays Mr. Cool,” Chicago Sun-Times “Debate […]

On Hardball‘s pregame right now, a crowd of people–most of them, apparently, Hofstra students; almost all of them, judging from their cheers and jeers, Obama supporters–is gathered behind Chris Matthews as he chats with the Chicago Tribune‘s Jill Zuckman and The New York Times‘s Jeff Zeleny. Behind Matthews’s head, a large sign, its black background […]

Today New York magazine moderated–egged on?–an instant messaging bout between Rolling Stone‘s Matt Taibbi and The National Review’s Byron York. The concept of making these two men type out their differences is at least as funny as the results, but click through to read Taibbi work himself into a lather on the origins of the […]

Fox News may be ahead in quantity of Acorn-related coverage (between Saturday and today at 3:00pm, TVEyes shows 556 mentions of “acorn” on Fox News, to CNN’s 67 and MSNBC’s 17; if you search on “a.c.o.r.n.” the numbers are 280 for Fox, 92 for CNN and 33 for MSNBC.). But CNN is clearly winning in […]

From the New York Times‘s scene from Hofstra University, host of tonight’s presidential debate: In a class on nonverbal communication, they discussed Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s laugh and Gov. Sarah Palin’s wink. Schooling the next generation of campaign reporters?

Sen. John McCain’s younger brother, a onetime reporter, wants the McCain campaign to re-open press access (to the candidate and “those who know him” and can most effectively talk him up). The younger McCain apparently emailed as much “to all who have a ‘McCain08’ or an ‘RNC’ address.” From that email: And most especially, let […]