Kurtz: How the Press Decides Winners

[Feanorcurufinwe]

Joe Lieberman "desperately needs at least a third-place showing in New Hampshire Jan. 27 to survive," says the Hartford Courant. For John Kerry, a second-place finish in Iowa "would probably be enough" to keep his "hopes alive," says the Los Angeles Times, although "a strong third might even do." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution agrees that "a strong second or third in Iowa could help Kerry rebound in New Hampshire." John Edwards needs a "good finish in Iowa, a surprisingly strong finish in New Hampshire and victory in South Carolina," declares The Washington Post.

Says who? Party strategists, unnamed insiders and the journalists themselves, who, like Olympic judges, set the degree of difficulty and rule on whether the competitors have performed well enough to move on to the next round.

It's a quadrennial expectations game in which the presidential campaigns keep trying to lower the bar (to beat those all-important odds) while the press keeps it high (to winnow an unwieldy field more quickly). And it's more than just a parlor game: Those who do BTE (better than expected) reap positive headlines, which often translate into fundraising success. Those who fail are all but written off by the press, which gives them the aura of losers, which makes it hard to get coverage, which makes it all but impossible to raise campaign cash.

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Some of the handicapping may well turn out to be accurate. Dick Gephardt says flatly that he has to win the Iowa caucuses. Edwards, who was born in South Carolina, acknowledges that it is a must-win state for him.

But the media's emphasis on the early states is sometimes overblown. Gephardt won Iowa in 1988 and soon dropped out. George H.W. Bush won Iowa in 1980 before being routed by Ronald Reagan. Pat Buchanan won New Hampshire in 1996 and promptly imploded. And John McCain's trouncing of George W. Bush in New Hampshire last time around didn't stop Bush's march to the presidency.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9259-2004Jan12.html