MediaWatch: November 1994

Conservatism Gets Little Credit After Election-Night Tradition of Blaming it For Losses

The Non-Ideological GOP Landslide?

November 8, 1994 may become known in Democratic circles as "Bloody Tuesday," the historic day in which they lost eight Senate seats and 52 House seats to a new GOP majority in both houses of Congress. Not one Republican incumbent lost in House, Senate, or gubernatorial contests. Could it be a repudiation of Clinton's liberal policies, or a vote for conservative policies in the Contract with America, as Republicans claimed? Or was it a surly electorate voting against incumbents in favor of generic "change" as Democrats asserted?

To determine the media's initial reaction, MediaWatch reviewed seven hours of CNN on election night, broadcast network prime time [portions shown on Washington, D.C. affiliates] as well as the special Nightline, plus the three broadcast network morning shows Nov. 9. The networks failed to portray the sweep as a GOP or conservative mandate. Overall, the four networks portrayed it as a result of voter anger or of their non-ideological anti- Clinton feelings, not an affirmation of their desire for con- servative policies or a rejection of Clinton's liberal policies.

In the past reporters haven't hesitated to blame conservative policies for causing GOP losses. During CBS coverage of the 1990 mid-term election, Ed Bradley declared: "If there's anything that we heard at the polls today, it was the sound of Reaganomics crashing all around us. If there's anything left of Reagan's trickle-down theory, Dan, it seems to be anxiety which seems to be trickling down through just about every segment of our society." In 1992 on CNN Catherine Crier, now with 20/20, offered this analysis of Bush's loss: "We remember the convention in Houston, the Patrick Buchanans and the very conservative movement that took over -- looks like it may have hurt the President."

This year the network take matched the Democratic spin 20 times: On ten occasions reporters and anchors blamed an angry electorate. Four times they blamed an "anti-incumbent" or "anti- Washington" mood. In six instances, three from CNN analyst Bill Schneider, reporters read the results to mean the public voted for bipartisan cooperation. In addition, generic "anti-Clinton" attitudes were cited 12 times.

In contrast, on just five occasions did reporters specifically raise voter concern about Clinton's liberal policies, usually health care. During NBC's prime time coverage, Tim Russert suggested that "in the eyes of the American people" Clinton's health care proposal was "a large, liberal program" and "tonight the voters have been saying, `No, we don't want that. We want to check that and we want more modest and incremental programs.'"

Only ABC explicitly suggested, in a comment from George Will on Nightline and in a question from Charlie Gibson on Good Morning America, that the results showed the public wished for more conservative policies. Other than Cokie Roberts noting how one winner "was so proud of the Republican contract," and Brit Hume noting on GMA that "Mr. Gingrich was right" about its popularity, the networks failed to credit the Contract. In fact, reporters criticized it more often. On Today, Lisa Myers asserted: "It doesn't add up Katie, there's no way that they can pass all of it or implement it." Some representative comments:

Angry Electorate. Dan Rather to Bob Dole during prime time: "Obviously there's a lot of anger and frustration out there. Republicans have tailored their campaigns, nothing wrong with that, around that. How do you transform all that anger into something positive for the country?"

Paula Zahn to Bob Dole on CBS This Morning: "It is interesting that you have so many victories to celebrate this morning, but at the same time, our exit polling shows that people are more angry at politicians than they are excited about having Republicans back in power in both houses."

NBC's Gwen Ifill on Today: "They're dissatisfied with the idea that nothing happened. In fact, Bill Clinton did a lot of things, he kept a lot of his promises. But there's a real surliness afloat out there of people who feel as if things they were entitled to didn't come to them. We talked a lot this morning about the angry white male, the people who feel like they had been pushed aside and other people are benefitting." A few minutes later Katie Couric asked Senator-elect Olympia Snowe: "What do you think is behind the so-called surliness of the voters that Gwen just described. Why do you think they're so angry?"

Anti-Incumbent Mood. Ted Koppel to Tony Coelho on Nightline: "To what degree does this represent not so much perhaps a rejection of President Clinton, or even Democratic programs, but just this sort of cycle of frustration that has the American voter every year two years throwing out whoever is in?"

CNN's Schneider election night on why Senator Jim Sasser lost: "Because the top issue in Tennessee was the voters felt it was time for a change. That was the top issue and almost all of them voted for the Republican candidate, Bill Frist." Schneider on Democrat Bob Carr's loss in Michigan: "Carr has been on the defensive in this, because he's been depicted by [Spencer] Abraham as a Washington insider."

Tom Brokaw offered this bizarre explanation as to why the more conservative candidate won the Texas gubernatorial race: "George W. Bush, a lot of people believe, including some friends of the former President himself, that Texans are in a way paying back the family because, after all, George and Barbara Bush did move back down to Houston. A lot of other folks think that maybe the women in Texas took a look at Barbara Bush and thought that her son was running, `We can help her out this time.'"

A Vote for Bipartisanship. Schneider on election night: "I think the American people were actually sending a message and it wasn't a partisan message. They voted for a Democrat for President, now they voted for a Republican Congress. Could the American people be saying `We want bipartisanship, we want to put an end to bipartisanship'? That could be the message in the election returns from 1992 and 1994." And a half hour later: "The cynics would say this was a vote for gridlock, but I think it's easier to say, and the data points to the conclusion, that it was a vote for bipartisanship, for centrism."

Bad News for GOP! Late on election night, CNN's Mary Tillotson managed to twist the news back onto the "Festival of Hate" GOP: "My memory after that '92 convention the Republicans held in Texas, is that a lot of people, even Republicans, said `Good Lord, what have we done?' because the party seemed to have skewed to the right. Well the whole country gets to see that now. It's at least conceivable they set up their own defeat in '96, isn't it?"

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