Republicans have objected that media coverage of Barack Obama during the campaign was more positive than coverage of John McCain. Wait a minute! Assuming this is so, there could be a rational reason, one with an important lesson for 21st century American politics.
In fact, a Pew Research Center study found it wasn’t so much that coverage of Obama was overly positive, but rather that coverage of McCain was overly negative. No wonder Republicans are unhappy. But they’ve missed a key sentence in the Pew report: “Much of the increased attention for McCain derived from actions by the senator himself, actions that, in the end, generated mostly negative assessments.”
There’s a saying for this: You reap what you sow. McCain/Palin ran one of the most negative campaigns in recent history. And that negativity boomeranged. If a campaign repeatedly lies, those lies eventually get called out, resulting in bad press. On the other hand, Obama ran a positive, effective grassroots campaign based on issues, not personal attacks. He denounced what he terms the “silly season” during elections. Perhaps his victory will signal not only how Americans want a president to lead, but the way they think campaigns should be run.
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