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November 08, 2012 03:02 AM UTC

Gardner blames Romney loss on TV "news," but he's not asked for specifics

  • 10 Comments
  • by: Jason Salzman

(Ah, that catchall “liberal media” – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Election losers inevitably turn their anger toward the news media, and that’s what Rep. Cory Gardner did Tuesday night when he told KNUS.

Gardner: “When the American people were watching the news with their family at the dinner table, they saw a media that is gung-ho for the President,” Gardner told KNUS last night. “So not only were we running an election against the President of the United States, we were running an election against TV stations around the country and inside people’s living rooms.”

Seems like the 1950’s rearing itself up again in the GOP mind here, because when was the last time the family ate dinner and watched the evening news together? My kid tries to reach for his computer, while eating at our dinner table, but I’ve always assumed it’s Facebook he’s glued to, not Brian Williams. And TV anchors are the last things I want to see at dinner.

But more to the point, KNUS host Steve Kelley should have asked Gardner for examples of the pro-Obama media bent.

It’s far more productive to criticize the media with specifics than with generalities.

And here’s a specific example of how media intervention, albeit by print media, led, probably unintentionally, to a blip of pro-Romney ink.

Close readers of The Denver Post, and I mean really dedicated readers, may remember consultant Eric Sondermann’s prediction, which he prefaced with “abundant doubt” in the newspaper the Sunday before the election, that Romney would win the Electoral College Vote, due to Romney’s “closing momentum.”

I was surprised to see this because on KBDI’s Colorado Inside Out on Friday night (at the 10:50 mark), Sondermann said:

Sondermann: “This thing is way too close to call. Anyone who tells you where this thing is going is lying to themselves and to somebody else.”

Sondermann told me today that Denver Post Editorial Page Editor Curtis Hubbard pushed Sondermann to make a prediction, after Sondermann had initially tried not to do so.

“My first submission was to try to hedge it, and Curtis Hubbard, completely appropriately, asked me to call it,” Sondermann said.

Sondermann was the lone “independent” on The Post’s “Battleground” panel, which was assembled to analyze election issues.

“There was nothing wrong with Curtis pushing me to make a call,” Sondermann said.

It wouldn’t have made “interesting reading,” Sondermann told me, for the three people one the left to say one thing (Obama wins), the three on the other to say something else (Romney wins), and for the person in the middle (Sondermann) to make no prediction at all.

I’d argue that Hubbard shouldn’t have pushed Sondermann to come down on one side or the other.

The truth is that calling the election a tossup was completely reasonable. And you’d think Hubbard would have expected Sondermann to choose Romney, if pushed. I find Sondermann right leaning, and his selection of Romney, based on nonexistent “momentum,” is one piece of evidence that I’m right. But that’s just speculation and weakly supported opinion on my part, obviously.

In explaining his Romney prediction, Sondermann said he wrongly saw the election as being “akin” to the Reagan-Carter contest, featuring a “bad economy and a beleaguered incumbent” when, in fact, the right frame was Bush-Kerry.  Like the Bush-Kerry race, this election was “a whole series of hotly contested narrow victories that when all put together equal a substantial triumph,” Sondermann said.

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10 thoughts on “Gardner blames Romney loss on TV “news,” but he’s not asked for specifics”

  1. American families should be watching more of Sondermann on television . . .

    . . . Jesus — what am I saying?  I wouldn’t wish that cruelty on even Libertad, let alone anyone else.

  2. or… their candidate, the plutocrat pushing trickle-down, sucked; Latinos did not appreciate Mitt’s embrace of the Xenophobic members of his party and women didn’t appreciate the constant refrain of old Republican men having to clarify they think rape is bad (even if a tool to carry out God’s will); and the GOP platform is loathed by most thinking Americans.  

    But, yeah, its easier to blame the TV.  

  3. Nate Silver showed that ALL of Mitt’s

    momentum had stalled a week before Sandy, before Sandy was even forecast. Yet the Rs are already beginning to say, Haley Barbour said it on the day before the election, that the storm had harmed Mitt’s chances. Pshaw. Mitt hurt Mitt. The lies did not end until sometime after his last appearance yesterday.

    But, in 4 years we are going to be told that President Obama was reelected because of Sandy. Oh, and the MSM  

    1. with less potential and no cuteness.

      I recall when the GOP used to accuse the Dems of being victims…

      Seriously, can anyone recall when a GOP congress-critter or senator or other such accepted their role, or their party’s role, in any problem?  Its always someone else’s fault.  Chris Christie, gays, Mexicans, Obama, Lisa Jackson, etc. etc. etc.

      Cory–‘Man’ up, be an adult.  Accept your role, and your party;s role, in its continual failure to connect with Colorado voters.  The fact is, your party’s platform is loathsome, your candidate’s pandering disgusting, and your base’s judgmental nature is tedious.  If you want to be the party of Mississippi and Idaho and old bitter white men who will all be dead soon, then congratulations.  Otherwise, cut out the blaming media shit and be a real leader.  

  4. A) TV news covered the Romney  campaign.

    B) That coverage included actual “quotes” from and details about the candidate.

    C) As voters got to know the candidate they liked him less and less.

    D) Baseball, Ray. Baseball

  5. Through his teeth about this.

    Fox had Romney winning in a rout. Right up untill Wisconsin, believe it or not.

    The republicans were so sure they’d stolen, supressed, intimidated….any discription of their unscrupulous tactics you want to use…..enough votes in Cuyahoga to literally throw Ohio red.

    When EVERYBODY called it Democratic, Rove went Fla. 2000, because he knew the truth. Like OJ knew Furman had framed him because he had both gloves when he left the scene, Rove knew 1 MILLION votes were in the shredder. His flustered and defiant posturing were real. He couldn’t believe stealing 1 million votes statewide hadn’t delivered Ohio.

    It worked when Forrida was the firewall in 2000, and actually, in Ohio in ’04.

    The Democrats won this election because enough people stood in line for as much as 7 hours to overcome a sophisticated and cynical organized billion dollar effort by the republican party to steal the 2012 election.

    No, cory, it wasn’t “tv”, it was people seeing through the lipstick on the red pig and doing something about it.

    And if you’re a redleg after this, if you can back a pack of vampires like the republicans, if you somehow aren’t ashamed of your party and yourself, you need to re-examine your entire life, your philosophy, your sense of right and wrong, and assess the damage you yourself have dealt your country.

    The rest of us carried your sorry mooching ass across the finish line, and we’re getting damned sick of cleaning up your messes.

    The proof in the pudding is the total election totals.

    Look it up. Do the work.

    And think about how you can somehow and some way make up for what you’ve done to your country.

  7. until at minimum the next redistricting in 2020 unless he is foolish enough to seek a statewide seat. He can probably stay where he is for the rest of his life. As I recall when they had a drawing for offices after he first won he drew a prime space, considered the best one at the time  

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