Opinion: A further sign of Mike Huckabee’s decline
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Mike Huckabee’s slide off the radar screen is almost complete, as evidenced by new coverage statistics from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Journalism Excellence.
During the week of Feb. 25 through March 2, Huckabee and his flagging bid for the Republican presidential nomination were a major focus of about 2% of all campaign stories. Here’s the killer for the former Arkansas governor: New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, in announcing he would not launch an independent bid for the White House, and longtime consumer activist Ralph Nader, in announcing that (once again) he would, got a bit more of the spotlight. Each figured prominently in 3% of the stories.
Not surprisingly, given the status of the two races, the fight for the Democratic nomination received far more coverage that the GOP contest. The study found that ‘the media focused nearly four times as much attention on Democrats (68%) than Republicans (15%).’
Again not surprisingly, Barack Obama was the main player in the ongoing narrative -- he was the ‘significant or dominant factor’ in 69% of the stories. The numbers for Hillary Clinton and John McCain were 58% and 28%, respectively.
Finishing first is not necessarily good news, however. Project director Tom Rosenstiel noted of Obama: ‘The media scrutinized everything from his legislative record to his connections to [Nation of Islam leader] Louis Farrakhan, and frequently addressed the question of whether journalists have been too soft on the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.’
The full report can be found here.
-- Don Frederick