Author: Jerry Skurnik

As someone with an interest in politics and gambling, I’ve closely following the media coverage of the proposed “racino” at Aqueduct Race Track.

The day after the Massachusetts Special Election, pundits did what they usually do after major(?) events.

Most declared that it proves what they have been writing and saying was right all along!

But only David Brooks of the New York Times would say this in such an intellectually dishonest way that it makes me wonder if Brooks thinks his readers are fools.

On the Times blog, fellow columnist Gail Collins and Brooks discussed the Massachusetts results. The issue was whether Obama and the Democrats should still try to pass health care reform. This is what Brooks, who opposed both the House and Senate bills said:

Even if you don’t care much about the business end of television, you must have noticed that NBC is moving Jay Leno from 10 PM to his old time of 11:35.

NBC is admitting that the low ratings means that Leno at 10 was such was a momentous flop that they are willing to upend their lineup in mid-season to fix the problem.

To those pundits who waste ink and bandwidth yapping about the political power of Glenn Beck, I invite you to compare the number of people who actually watch “flop” Leno and those who watch “popular” Beck.

I’m sure that most of you have wondered about why Fox News was so hostile to Barack Obama during his campaign and since he’s taken  office.

After all, Fox has always given such favorable coverage to polticians like him – African-American Democrats.

But I’m glad to learn the answer to why Fox is not a friend to Obama from Sunday’s New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/business/media/10ailes.html?hp

Roger Ailes, Fox News’s boss says he opposed Obama, not because of his positions on foreign policy, on taxes or abortion or the environment but because as Ailes told the Times –

Rudy Giuliani’s announcement that he would not run for anything in 2010 has caused a few to circulate 2 closely connected myths about his campaign for President.

On Wednesday, both the Daily News and New York Post thought it “raised eyebrows” that the new Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance was hiring a former aide to Eliot Spitzer to be his personal assistant.

Attorney Richard Emery hosted a fundraising party for State Senator Eric Schneiderman last week.

Blair Horner of NYPIRG, complained to Liz Benjamin of the Daily News about this because Emery is a member of the State Commission on Public Integrity, even though the Commission does NOT have jurisdiction over the Senate.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2009/12/horner-public-integrity-and-fu.html#more

"We believe members of the commission should be removed from politics, as pure as Caesar’s wife," Horner told me. "I don't think it's against the law, I just think it's a terrible mistake for someone who plays a quasi-judicial role over the lobbying industry to be out raising money for Democrats."

One of the arguments in support of the creation of New York City Campaign Finance Law was that by providing funds to insurgent candidates and limiting the amounts that could be contributed, City elections would become more competitive.

With the huge number of incumbents getting re-elected since the law came into effect, most of us have doubted that the argument held much water. But this year, a case can be made that the law did help level the playing field and made our elections more competitive.

We all know that five incumbent City Councilmembers were defeated in the Democratic Primary. But those were not the only surprisingly competitive Council campaigns we had this year.

Eight years ago, this was the political landscape in the U.S

There was a Republican President who was elected with 47.9% of the popular vote.

Republicans controlled the US Senate 51-49 and the House of Representatives 229-206.

Democrats had just been elected Governors of New Jersey & Virginia, after eight years of Republican governors.

Today, the situation is –

There is a Democratic President who was elected with 52.9% of the popular vote.

Democrats control the US Senate 60-40 and the House of Representatives 258-177.

I have previously written that I believe there are now two electorates in the US. One is a pretty small one that consists of people like the readers of this blog and others like it and faithful viewers of the cable news yappers of the left, right & center – the voters who pay a lot of attention to and know a lot about politics. The other is a much, much larger group that pays almost no attention to politics or government.

There’s new evidence of big the gap is between the 2 electorates. It’s from a recent New York Times story about cable ratings.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/cnn-drops-to-last-place-among-cable-news-networks/?hp