The 'Dewey Defeats Truman Awards' for the Most Incompetent Political Reporting of This Year's Election

Alexandria, VA - Last night's election results were an unequivocal testament to the strength of the conservative movement. In New York's 23rd, the GOP lost because it committed political suicide by drafting a candidate to the left even of the Democrat, and a complete political unknown came within a whisker of winning on the Conservative Party line. In New Jersey, a moderate Republican barely defeated a liberal incumbent Democrat with an approval rating under 40%. But in Virginia, a state captured by the Democrats last year, and where an unabashed, uncompromising, conservative GOP ticket ran this year, it won a massive landslide.

In recognition of those journalists who insisted that the only recipe for Republican success was to run away from the conservative agenda that ultimately was the GOP's margin of victory, the Media Research Center (MRC) has named four winners of the Dewey Defeats Truman Awards for the most incompetent political reporting of this year's election: Mike Allen of Politico, Katie Couric of CBS News, the New York Times' editorial board and Ron Brownstein of National Journal.

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell has congratulated the winners:

"Last night was a triumph for the conservative movement and repudiation to those who said Republicans had to move away from the conservative ideology to achieve victory.

"I hereby grant the Dewey Defeats Truman Awards for the most incompetent political reporting of the year to the following journalists for their impeccably inept coverage. Congratulations for embarrassing yourselves, your news organizations and the industry for a backfire that only President Truman himself could truly appreciate."

Quotes earning the winners their respective dishonors include:

• Politico's Mike Allen: "Well this is crazy, this is a suicidal move by Republicans.... If Republicans want to be a majority party, if Republicans want to get back in power, they need to accept more than one type of Republican." - on MSNBC's Morning Joe, October 27.

• CBS's Katie Couric: "(C)ontroversial commentators and far-right conservatives have hijacked the message;... Republicans need to get the focus back onto the Big Tent where all are welcome and off the sideshows that are popping up along the party's fringe." - in her online "Katie Couric's Notebook," October 27.

• New York Times editorial: "The feeble pulse of moderation in the Republican Party is in danger of flat-lining; ...creative ideas and candidates, not right-wing zeal, are the obvious way to get back in the game of democracy." - headlined, "Torching the Big Tent," October 26.

• National Journal's Ron Brownstein: "(T)he leash that the base is holding on the party is tightening.... (Are) Republicans ...going to have the freedom to maneuver they'll need to recover in some of those blue states(?) - on ABC's This Week, November 1.