Media Watchdog Warns GOP Against Letting Up in Final Stretch
by Chad Groening
October 22, 2004
(AgapePress) - As the 2004 presidential campaign moves into its final stages, one media expert says the liberal media is likely to keep hammering out its anti-Bush bias, relentlessly, all the way up to election day.Tim Graham is the director of media research analysis for the Alexandria, Virginia-based Media Research Center. He believes George W. Bush, if he truly hopes to be re-elected, will have to overcome not only John Kerry but also the liberal media as well.
"I think obviously it's in the interest of Bush and the Republicans to run scared every day on these issues," Graham says, "and to keep pounding their message. The problem you're going to have there, of course, is the liberal media's going to pound their anti-Bush message all the way alongside them."
The media analyst suspects some Republicans may be a bit too relaxed, perhaps because they are thinking about 1980, when Ronald Reagan pulled off a landslide victory in a race the polls predicted would be a close one. "You'll remember that late in the 1980 campaign, it was seen as a very even race and ended up breaking for Reagan in a dramatic way," Graham notes. "I'm sure that Republicans like the idea even though Reagan was the challenger then and Bush is the incumbent [now]."
The media watchdog says certainly some Republicans are enamored of the idea "that somehow Bush is going to reopen that six- or seven- or eight-point lead and just take it home," but he warns, "We can't predict that."
Graham says Republicans must not forget what happened to Bush four years ago, when news of a 1970s DUI arrest broke just days before the election. "The Democrats at the last minute sprung this whole 'nonpartisan' attack about George W. Bush's running under the 'intoxication ticket' in the mid-70s in Maine, where he was driving around at the dangerous speed of 20 miles an hour."
The MRC spokesman is advising the GOP not to be overconfident. Instead, Graham feels it would be in the best interests of the Republicans and the Bush campaign to stay cautious, be wary of possible last-minute Democratic strategies, and keep driving home their own message -- because, he says, that is what the liberal media will be doing.
