Press make excuses for 'front-runner'

Source Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani's remarkably weak performance thus far has been excused by many in the press as just part of the strategy of the politician many dubbed a "front-runner" early on. The new line on the Giuliani campaign coming from many pundits and reporters is that the candidate never really tried to win the early Republican contests. According to USA Today (1/21/08), "The former New York City mayor has gambled that he could skip all of the early contests and focus on Florida." Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne noted (1/22/08) that Giuliani "has hung back from the competition so far." And MSNBC host Chris Matthews declared (1/22/08) that some think the GOP race "has come down to McCain, Romney, and--just because Giuliani hasn't been beaten yet--Giuliani." U.S. News & World Report columnist Gloria Borger agreed that Giuliani "hasn't really competed in the early states," though she suggested (1/28/08) that "voters might figure you don't deserve a nomination after a drop-by on the process." Though it's not surprising that Giuliani advisers would try to claim their candidate simply "skipped" the early contests, campaign journalists should be aware that this is false. Giuliani campaigned vigorously in New Hampshire, spending millions of dollars on advertisements and making repeated campaign appearances in the state (ABCNews.com, 1/8/08). He also campaigned in Iowa (though somewhat inconsistently); as the New York Times noted less than two months before the caucuses (11/18/07): "With a surge of radio advertisements, telephone calls and mailings, Rudolph W. Giuliani is stepping up his efforts to compete in the Iowa Republican caucuses, complicating Mitt Romney's effort to nail down a clean victory here and underscoring the fluid nature of the contest less than seven weeks from the voting." Indeed, the media conventional wisdom a few months ago was that Giuliani's strength was his ability to compete broadly. As Politico.com put in (10/29/07): "The fact that Giuliani can compete in New Hampshire--where he previously was believed to be too far behind GOP rivals Mitt Romney and John McCain to make a serious stand--is another indication of the surprising buoyancy of his candidacy." A more accurate interpretation might be that the media made an early decision to treat Giuliani as a front-runner. The fact that voters thus far have been much less interested in him is somehow taken not as a sign that the media made a mistake, but rather treated as just part of his plan to win the nomination.