In Journalism 4953 we discussed the amount of control debate moderators have.  We agreed that a strong moderator has the power to guide a debate in the direction that he/she desires however, a weak moderator will often fall prey to the attacks of the candidates. 

During the South Carolina Primary on Jan. 19 GOP candidate Newt Gingrich lashed out at CNN's moderator, John King. King began the debate by asking Gingrich to respond to his ex-wife's comment about the open relationship that she had with Gingrich.  Gingrich responded to this by saying "I am frankly astounded that CNN would take trash like that and use it to open a presidential debate." He then proceeded to put down the moderator and the media as a whole.  At this point, King revoked his question, apologized, and moved on to a different topic.  The end result was that this debate was much less structure and much of the power was placed in the hands of the candidates rather than the moderator.

The Florida Primary debate on Jan. 26 was much different.  In this debate the moderator was CNN's Wolf Blitzer.  During the debate Blitzer asked Gingrich is he was “satisfied with level of transparency of Romney’s personal finances?”  Gingrich again attempted to lash out calling the question “nonsense.”  However, unlike King in South Carolina, Blitzer did not back down from his question explaining that it was significant because Gingrich himself had attacked Romney about his foreign bank accounts that week.  Blitzer continued to pressure Gingrich saying, “If you make a serious accusation against Gov. Romney like that you need to explain that.”  Eventually, Gingrich relinquished and answered the question.

By pressuring the candidates and standing his ground Blitzer was able to take control of the debate.  He forced candidates to answer the questions and stopped them from wandering too far off topic and as a result, the Jan. 26 debate was much more interesting than the Jan. 19 debate. 

 

 
Prior to the State of the Union address Tuesday night much of the political coverage in the Chicago Tribune was related to the Florida primaries and the public response to Mitt Romney’s tax returns.  However, there were five stories devoted to the State of the Union address.  Two of the pre-State of the Union stories were related to how the speech is prepared and President Barack Obama’s plans for the future. They focused on Obama’s plans for tax reform and the policies that he plans to implement in his potential re-election.  The other three stories were about the feelings of the Republicans.

Seeing as this speech will likely spark Obama’s 2012 campaign the coverage following the speech was related to what Obama said and how the public responded. There were stories that spoke about what the Chicago Tribune felt were big points in the speech such as the Dream Act and tax reform.  During his speech Obama made a point to show that he believed tax reform was necessary in order to help the economy.  He also pointed out the fact that there are many people who have been living in the United States their whole lives that are not legal citizens.  Obama hopes that in the future these people will be able to gain citizenship and contribute to the economy.

In addition, there were stories that focused on the negative response from the Republican party. Naturally the Republicans had many critiques about what the President had to say.  Some felt that the president has not lived up to his promises.  Others such as Mitt Romney believed that he has changed his stance and taking the ideas of the Republican candidates.

By Wednesday morning most of the coverage about the State of the Union had ceased. Instead the focus shifted to Gabrielle Giffords resignation and the Thursday primaries.  The next step will be to see who the Republican candidate will be and how the president will campaign against him.

 
The result of the South Carolina GOP primaries came as a shock to many people.  Newt Gingrich won 40% of the Republican vote in South Carolina.  This means that three different Republican candidates have won three different primaries.  Rick Santorum won the Iowa primary, Mitt Romney won the New Hampshire primary, and now Gingrich won South Carolina.  With the withdrawal of Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry there are now only four candidates left (the fourth being Ron Paul). 

Going into the primaries Romney was expected to be a clear front-runner but as seen in the results of the debates this is not the case.  Romney was especially hurt in the South Carolina debate by the overwhelming demand for the release of his tax returns.  It is no secret that Romney is an extremely wealthy man.  He was born into a wealthy family and has worked his way up to accrue millions of dollars. Until now Romney has kept his tax returns private however, with all the pressure he faced in South Carolina he has been forced to make them public.

Most news sources are portraying this race as a Romney Gingrich duel and they are giving little attention to the other two candidates. However, according to CNN Ron Paul “tripled his South Carolina vote from 2008 and so claimed ‘victory’ of sorts.”  In addition, Santorum did win the Iowa primary although only by a small margin. 

Ultimately the goal of the Republican Party is to win the presidential election against President Barack Obama.  This means that the strongest Republican candidate will be the one to go on against Obama. If there is anything that these three primaries have shown is that it is anybody’s race and we should not discount any one of these four candidates.

 
In the beginning of this school year I knew very little about U.S. politics.  I had never followed the primaries or seen a full debate.  In fact by most standards I was completely uninformed.  I had done some preliminary research on a few candidates in the 2008 election but not enough to get a true sense of the candidates.

When I began to follow the 2012 primaries and began writing this blog my eyes were opened to a whole new world.  I have started learning about the personal and public lives of each of the candidates left in the election and I am beginning to understand how the political scene works.

This past week I followed the South Caroling primaries in the Chicago Tribune.  Much of the coverage was correlated with how Gingrich won South Carolina.  The Tribune stated, “the Gingrich victory followed disappointing finishes in the first contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.”  This approach is similar to that of CNN and msnbc.com.

However, the Chicago Tribune is different from other news sources I viewed in one way. Many of the Chicago Tribune stories related to the primaries are short and focus on comments made by the candidates.  For example, there is a short story about Mitt Romney advocating for self-deportation.  Anther story is about how Ron Paul intends to continue in the race.  These short blurbs are placed on the website often and do not delve too much into the outcome of the primaries but rather give a commentary on what was said during the debate.

I am anxious to continue following the primaries and the Chicago Tribune to see what the end result will be and how it will be covered.

 
Probably the most obvious candidate that will be running for the 2012 election is Barack Obama, our current president.  Because he grew up in a middle-class family, many feel that Obama has the ability to relate to the population.  In fact, it may even be said that he accomplished the American Dream: achieving success despite all odds.  By starting grass roots movements for the homeless in Chicago Obama has shown that he supports middle and lower class families which make up the majority of Americans.

For this reason, it is obvious why Obama would have a desire to be re-elected president.  When he began, he set out to fix the economic crisis, bring home the soldiers from Iraq, and provide affordable healthcare insurance for all Americans among other goals. These are extremely lofty goals and as a result, they were not fully achieved within the four years that Obama has been president.  Naturally, he wants to be re-elected is so that he can finish the job that he started in 2008.  

The real question is can he be re-elected?  One of the biggest hurdles for Obama in the coming election is the issue of the economy.  The president’s critics feel that he has not done enough in his four years as president to alter the state of economic depression.

Although he will somehow have to silence his critics by showing that there has been significant progress made in regards to the economy, Obama’s re-election is viable. He already has many supporters and has shown that he will keep his promises by beginning programs such as the Rehibition Act.

    Author

    I am a journalism and writing intensive English major in the Diederich College of Communication at Marquette University. 

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