Gun to Our Heads
"Going into the homestretch, the campaign is taking on faint overtones of the old protection racket with Republicans increasingly sounding like the Capone gang, offering protection against Bugsy Clinton and his mob."
- ABCs John Cochran on House GOP strategy, October 27 This Week introductory story.
The Bad News is Really Good, Good News Really Not
"The government reports today that the economy slowed down over the summer. The Gross Domestic Product, which measures all economic activity, was up 2.2 percent, but that is less than half the 4.7 percent growth in the second quarter. President Clinton who was campaigning in Michigan noted that many economists say a cooling off is necessary to keep inflation down and therefore, he thinks, the numbers were good news. Senator Dole on the other hand was in Tennessee earlier today, along with Mrs. Dole. He says the numbers are cause for concern. He went on to say if Mr. Clinton is re-elected there could be a recession."
- ABC anchor Peter Jennings, October 30 World News Tonight.
vs.
Peter Jennings: "The [2.7 percent GDP] rate is more than economists had projected, but in many cases, less than meets the eye."
Bob Jamieson: "The increase in economic growth was driven by a surge in consumer spending. The best news came from spending for big appliances and furniture, which rose by nearly nine percent. But many economists say the report is not proof the economy is taking a sharp turn for the better."
- World News Tonight, October 27, 1992.
"The government is out with its final official report on economic
growth before the election. And it indicates a dramatic slowdown. In the third quarter of the year the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of just 2.2 percent, that is less than half the growth rate of the second quarter. It didnt take long for the presidential candidates to put their own spins on todays economic numbers."
- Dan Rather, Oct. 30 CBS Evening News.
vs.
"Just one week before the election and the Bush administration says the U.S. economy has turned the corner and started expanding again, but there is some doubt about the accuracy of the figures, and even if they are accurate, they may be too little too late to help President Bush because it was also announced today that consumer confidence in the economy continues to fall."
- Rather on the October 27, 1992 CBS Evening News. The GDP figure was later revised upward to 3.9 percent for the 3rd quarter.
"The economy was slow, but steady going in the last quarter. Many
economists were encouraged by that because it means inflation is under control and interest rates will stay low. But, Bob Dole has
another vision."
- Tom Brokaw, October 30 NBC Nightly News.
vs.
"The President [Bush] tonight finally has an economic number that he can brag about, but at the same time consumers were checking in today and theyre yet to be persuaded that this economy is turning around."
- Tom Brokaw, NBC Nightly News, October 27, 1992.
Relaying Democratic Spin as Fact
"To take back the House of Representatives the Democrats need 19 seats. And as of today it looks like they could win them. Democrats are taking special aim at the Republicans elected in 1994. Theyre endangered in part because their leader is so unpopular. With the help of millions of dollars from organized labor, Democratic challengers constantly remind voters that these freshmen supported Newt Gingrich and that together they shut down the government."
- ABCs Cokie Roberts, October 18 World News Tonight.
Cheap Shot
"Which word are we talking about? The word to his first wife when he said, `Until death do us part?"
- CNN Talk Back Live host Susan Rook after the RNCs Ed Gillespie said Doles "word is his bond." Quoted by
Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz, October 21.
NBC: No Big Deal, Republicans Just as Bad
"Perot barely mentioned Republican Bob Dole, even though he also accepts contributions from overseas."
- Gwen Ifill on Perots speech criticizing Clintons illegal foreign donations, Oct. 24
NBC Nightly News.
"In a year when you talk about, corporations who give $25,000 chunks of money, why are people particularly outraged when people with last names like Cabrera and people from India and Korea and Indonesia and China all of a sudden get, there just seems to be a lot of foreigner bashing as a subtext in some of the criticism."
- NBC News reporter Gwen Ifill on PBSs Washington Week in Review, October 25. Cabrera is now serving a 19-year sentence for smuggling 6,000 pounds of cocaine into the U.S.
"Beyond the tedium of the day to day campaigning, theres another much more alarming development this year - money. Huge amounts of money pouring into both parties, raising very serious questions about influence and conflict of interest."
- Tom Brokaw opening the October 29 NBC Nightly News.
"Of course Republicans, including Bob Dole and Jesse Helms, have also tapped into foreign fundraising. And none of these investigations will produce answers until months, or years, after election day."
- Andrea Mitchell concluding her October 29 NBC Nightly News story.
"On campaign finance, White House officials admit that both sides are dirty. The best defense: Republicans do it too."
- Jim Miklaszewski, October 29 The News with Brian Williams on MSNBC.
Dole Was Okay When He Raised Taxes
"Dole knows better. Columnist Matthew Miller has even fancifully suggested that the Senators 15 percent tax cut proposal is really part of a secret Dole plan to have radical tax-cutting decisively repudiated at the polls. That way, the death of his political career can give life to the principle of fiscal responsibility that he devoted so many years of that career to
advancing. If only."
- Newsweeks Jonathan Alter, Oct. 21.
"One of the roles of a journalist is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. But after the debate ended, not one network news anchor or commentator noted the oddness of two presidential candidates hankering for tax handouts. Like Clinton and Dole, the anchors and television pundits earn more than 99 percent of all Americans. If those same TV commentators made say, $35,000 a year, they might have been more struck by Dole and Clintons bantering."
- U.S. News Senior Writer David Whitman, October 21.
"By 1985, Reagans economics had plunged the country into debt.
Doles all-out fight to lower the deficit became the defining battle of his career."
- Actress Blair Brown narrating Frontline on PBS, October 8.
"Just a year later, when he saw that supply-side economics had
ballooned the deficit, Dole worked hard to raise government revenues by closing tax loopholes, and pushing through what was then the largest tax increase in history."
- Ken Bode narrating "Bob Doles Odyssey" in CNNs Democracy in
America, Oct 20.
Charles Should Be In Charge
"Bob Dole is running around the country saying, `Where is the
outrage? Where is it? We now have the Democratic Party hiding this guy John Huang until after the election, who was out raising
money. Youve got rafts of big contributors all listing the same address, which is the Democratic national headquarters.
Newsweek says you have the ambassador to Taiwan out there soliciting huge
gifts from people, businessmen in Taiwan and you have Buddhist monks and nuns who have taken vows of poverty giving big amounts
of money to the Democratic Party, and nobody seems to notice this. Somebody said the other day if the Republicans had done this the press would be killing them. Why are they getting away with this?"
- ABC Good Morning America co-host Charlie Gibson to Bill Kristol and Cokie Roberts, October 29.
- L. Brent Bozell III, Publisher;
- Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
- Geoffrey Dickens, Eugene Eliasen, Jim Forbes, Steve Kaminski,
Clay Waters; Media Analysts
- Peter Reichel, Circulation Manager; Kathy Ruff, Marketing
Director