Elections/Campaigns

If you get the feeling that thus far, the embryonic 2008 presidential race is a contest between two people, a famous wife and Senator and a charismatic freshman legislator, that’s a sign you’re actually following the coverage.

In the wide-open race for the White House, 20 hopefuls have already announced their candidacy or established an exploratory committee. (Those stats and candidates courtesy of CQ.) But it’s the two Democratic senators looking to break down the gender and race barriers—Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama—who are siphoning off most of the media oxygen.

Everyone else, including some notable Republicans, are trailing badly in the battle for clips.

To gauge the level of press interest, PEJ conducted a search of Google News for stories with the candidate’s name in the week after his or her entry into the race. (Because of search problems, we were only able to select candidates who announced in 2007.) Hilary (and Hillary Rodham) Clinton—the powerful and polarizing former First Lady—is leading in this early derby for media attention. She turned up in a tidy 25,201 stories in the seven days following her January 20 announcement. Her closest challenger—the charismatic, if inexperienced Obama—came in next at 19,496—but that is more than 28% fewer stories.

After that, there was a huge drop off to New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (at 6,770) and Connecticut Senator Christopher (or Chris) Dodd at 5,792—two well known party figures who couldn’t compete with the frontrunners in the media buzz department.

On the Republican side, two of the biggest names—including Senator John McCain and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani—were not included in the search because they formed exploratory committees last year. That left former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, mentioned in 7,102 stories, as the top GOP attention-getter. That put him ahead of Bill Richardson, but not in the league of the media darlings.

Romney was trailed by Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, who announced on January 20, with 4,149.

After that, there was a steep decline to California Congressman Duncan Hunter (1,597), Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo (1,393). Former Virginia governor James. S. Gilmore III failed to break triple digits (93).

There are a few candidates, however, who didn’t get the full seven-day Google search, but showed some media drawing power. The search was only able to pick up the last four days of former Democratic senator John Edwards’s coverage (he announced on Dec. 28). But he appaeared in 6,911 stories, a fairly strong showing. Republican and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee turned up in 1,463 stories in the first three days after announcing his intent to set up an exploratory committee on January 28.

Of course, media attention does not translate into votes. But, the public doesn’t actually get to do any of that for another year.

(For those of you looking to win barroom bets or simply amuse your friends at parties, the full list of candidates on the Democratic side is: Dodd, Edwards, Obama, Clinton, Richardson, former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, former Alaska senator Mike Gravel and Delaware Senator Joseph Biden, who jumped in on January 31. The Republican contenders are Brownback, McCain, Giuliani, Romney, Hunter, Tancredo, Huckabee, Gilmore, Illinois attorney John Cox, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, and former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson.)

Though Barack Obama hasn’t made up his mind whether to make a run for the White House in 2008, the prospect of his candidacy has excited the news media—with coverage increasing markedly last week.

A search of the terms used in that coverage on Google News found that from Dec.11 through Dec. 17, Obama was mentioned in 2,590 news stories. That compares to only 409 stories at the same time last month (Nov. 13-19).

In large part, that spike in Obama’s coverage was a response to his Dec. 10 visit to New Hampshire, the location of the nation’s first presidential primary and a mandatory stop for anyone contemplating a presidential campaign.

Serious media interest in the Obama candidacy, however, predated the trip to New Hampshire. It really seemed to pick up steam at the beginning of the month when Obama spoke about AIDS at a large evangelical church and joked about a possible presidential bid with Jay Leno.

A search over the past four weeks that includes some top potential White House hopefuls along with the word “presidential” finds that only John McCain has commanded more coverage. And with his call for more troops in Iraq, McCain has been right in the middle of the intensifying public debate over U.S. policy there.

McCain’s name appeared in 6,080 stories that included the word “presidential” with Obama close behind at 5,640 stories. That’s considerably more than the total racked up by two other oft-mentioned potential candidates, Hillary Clinton (2,159) and Rudy Giuliani (1,984).

One way to get a sense of the kind of attention Obama is attracting as he presses the flesh and ponders his political future is to look at the terms associated with him in stories. From Dec. 11-17, he has been most commonly linked with such words as “charismatic/charisma” (200 stories), “Obama mania” (147), “frenzy” (136), “rock star” (57), “phenomenon” (31) and “star power” (24). The one frequently appearing word with a likely negative connotation for Obama is “inexperience" (152).

But while "Obama mania" may be the story line today, any decision to run for president is apt to trigger a frenzied race among journalists to excavate whatever skeletons are buried in the closet of the first-term Illinois Senator. The terms associated with him at that point are likely to enter a different cycle of coverage.

For about five years now, the ratings pecking order for the three major cable news networks has seemed immovable.

The Fox News Channel, which combines energy and personality in a product that is particularly popular among conservatives, has led the pack. CNN, which has prided itself on the breadth and reach of its reporting even as it has struggled with its prime-time strategy, is a clear second. MSNBC, which never seemed to find a niche, has run a consistent and distant third – sparking occasional speculation about whether the plug should be pulled.

But according to recent Nielsen Media Research data, that cable network—which is trying to carve out an identity through its political coverage—is starting to make headway among viewers. The question is whether it can sustain that momentum.

Comparing November 2006 to the same month a year earlier, MSNBC racked up the most dramatic prime time gains of the three cable news channels. It generated a 25% increase in prime time audience, while CNN saw 17% growth and the Fox News Channel actually dipped 16%.

MSNBC performed strongly during the day as well, registering an 11% increase in daytime viewers compared to November 2005. This was just slightly less than CNN’s 13% gain and much better than Fox News’ drop of 15%.

Though it remains well behind its competition in sheer numbers, the upswing was welcome news for the long-struggling channel. And newly appointed General Manager Dan Abrams has plans to brand MSNBC as a haven for political junkies.

In November, which included the mid-term elections, MSNBC attracted its largest number of prime time viewers (503,000) for the year. And if you look at the growth in total viewers from the month before (October 2006), that number includes 21% more prime time and six percent more daytime viewers—the largest monthly spike in viewers all year.

What factors are working in MSNBC’s favor? One may be synergy with NBC News since some of the network’s top news stars—such as Tim Russert and Brian Williams—appeared on the cable channel during its election coverage. This corporate cooperation seems likely to increase with the physical shift of the MSNBC operations to NBC News’ New York headquarters.

MSNBC executives also think the changing political climate in the country might help the network, an outlet whose biggest prime time star, Keith Olbermann, leans noticeably to the left. “The mood has changed and people are looking for a different kind of coverage,” NBC News VP Phil Griffin said in a recent issue of Variety.

Reminiscent of Fox News’ personality-driven prime time fare, Olbermann’s opinionated 8 o’clock talk show—“Countdown with Keith Olbermann”—has become a surprise ratings success in recent months. Compared to November 2005, “Countdown” saw a 66% rise in total audience in November 2006.

To keep matters in context, cable news tends to generate a spike in audience during big events like elections, and all three networks showed some increase in prime time viewers from October to November 2006. But in registering the biggest gains of the three, MSNBC has at least fanned hopes that it has finally found a formula for making the cable news wars more competitive.