Clinton and Giuliani Most-Lampooned Candidates: But Is That a Bad Thing?

It may be the ultimate test of that old maxim that any publicity is good publicity.

A new study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs found Hillary Clinton and Rudolph Giuliani were the biggest Democratic and Republican targets of late-night comedians in most of 2007, respectively. Clinton has endured 186 jokes this year (all her other Democratic opoonents got a total 197 jokes), while Giuliani for 72 barbs.

Overall, Dems got it worse with 383 jokes compared to 312 knocks for Republicans. Unfortunately, the CMPA looked at a pretty narrow field: monologues from Jan. 1 to Oct. 10 by Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, David Letterman, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (not sure why Jimmy Kimmel anmd Craig Ferguson got the cold shoulder; maybe the CMPA doesn't have enough VCRs).

But I think you have to wonder whether this exposure is bad as it seems. Jokes equal top-of-mind recognition. And when you have so many condidates in the most contested primaries in recent memory, maybe even a good jab from Leno or letterman is better than no attention at all.

Here's the rest of the CMPA release:

MAJOR FINDINGS

Hillary Clinton has been the butt of 186 jokes by TV comedians this year, nearly as many as all her Democratic opponents, who combined for 197. Running a distant second in the humor race was Barack Obama with 56, followed by John Edwards (43), Dennis Kucinich (34), and Joe Biden (26).

The jokes about Ms. Clinton focused heavily on her physical appearance, including her taste in clothes (29 jokes), her alleged lack of emotional warmth (43 jokes), and her marital problems (21 jokes). Among the other candidates only John Edwards attracted frequent jokes about physical appearance, often about his hair. (See below for sample Hillary Clinton jokes.)

Overall the comedians found Democratic candidates (383 jokes) funnier than Republicans (312). Rudy Giuliani led the GOP contestants with 72 jokes, followed closely by Mitt Romney (68) and John McCain (54), with Mike Huckabee (27) and Fred Thompson (24) trailing behind.

Only "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart targeted any other Democratic candidate more often than Hillary – he told 27 jokes about Sen. Obama vs.25 about Sen. Clinton. But there was more variety in the choice of Republican targets: Leno zinged Giuliani most often (37 jokes), Letterman focused mainly on Romney (18), McCain led Jon Stewart’s list (25), and Colbert zapped Huckabee most (14).

But the presidential candidates have had plenty of competition from other newsmakers this year; only Ms. Clinton and Mr. Giuliani were among the ten most frequently joked-about public figures. The top ten targets of the TV jokemeisters were topped by George Bush with 826 jokes, followed by Paris Hilton (258), Dick Cheney (197), Hillary Clinton (186), Bill Clinton (142), Larry Craig (116), Alberto Gonzales (103), O.J. Simpson (87), Al Gore (84) and Rudy Giuliani (72).

Sample Hillary Jokes:

If Fred Thompson runs against Hillary, it’ll be "Law and Order" vs. "Cold Case." - Leno

Bill Clinton says that he’s been very conditioned about global warming. As a matter of fact, last week another chunk of ice fell off his wife. – Letterman

During a recent campaign speech Barack Obama called John Edwards "kind of cute." Then he said Hillary Clinton has a really great personality. – Conan O’Brien

Hillary is dressing sexier and sexier. Yesterday she was seen shopping at Victoria ’s Pantsuit. - Letterman

Sen. Clinton said that as president she would bring the troops home. The troops? She can’t even get Bill to come home. – Leno

Over 18 million American men currently suffer from erectile dysfunction. Doctors say that number could double if Hillary gets elected. – Leno

In the Aftermath of Its Greatest Triumph, CNN Finds Mostly Criticism

The press releases coming from CNN yesterday were almost giddy: Wednesday's Republican CNN/YouTube debate imn St. Petersburg drew 4.49-million viewers, making it the most-watched primary presidential debate in history. Before that, CNN's Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas Nov. 15 was the most-watched primary debate in history, drawing 4-million viewers.

But all that success seemed beside the point Thursday, as the cable newschannel drowned in criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. See my story with Wes Allison in today's paper for the blow by blow.

Republican bloggers and pundits were criticizing CNN for allowing a spotlight moment for a gay retired general who turned out to have ties to both Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. The appearance by Keith Kerr, a well-known advocate for rescinding the ban against gays in the military, triggered a microscopic scrutiny of every questioner by right wing bloggers such as Michelle Malkin, Redstate.com and Newsbusters.org.

Liberals, on the other hand, criticized CNN for initially promising to insulate the Republican debate from questions posed by Democrats, though they made no such public promises to Democrats for their debate.

In response, CNN offered a defense that couldn't explain away two key problems: political director Sam Feist told me yesterday the cable channel focused on the questions, not the questioners, refusing to "provide a ideological litmus test" to everyone who submitted a question.

But if the background of the questioners doesn't matter, why did CNN debate chief David Bohrman apologize for using Kerr and say they wouldn't have aired his question had they knew of his Democratic political ties? And since they figured out the final 60 to 70 possible questions for air in the 24 hours before the debate, how could CNN have possibly vetted all those questioners for significant ties to Democratic campaigns?

Unfortunately, as much as CNN officials bragged about making a Republican debate for Republicans, with questions submitted by average people, their question selection process made it impossible to keep out hidden activists. But I doubt anyone would have noticed, if they hadn't handed a signature spotlight moment to a questioner who they hadn't vetted much at all.

And even though some liberal bloggers are saying the political background of questioners shouldn't matter, I have a hard time believing they would have tolerated seeing Hillary Clinton asked a tough question on an issue important to conservatives by someone with hidden ties to Rudolph Giuliani or George W. Bush.

It's an ironic turn, given that so much initial concern about the CNN/YouTube debates centered on whether the questions would be good enough. Turns out, we all should have been playing closer attention to who was asking the questions -- especially CNN.

See all the YouTube clips of the 34 questions asked Wednesday by clicking here.

Here's the three different statements CNN released Thursday:

STATEMENT 1

"The whole point of these ground-breaking CNN/YouTube debates is to focus on substantive questions of concern to real people and to throw open the process to a wider range of Americans all around the country. CNN cared about what you asked, not who you were. This was the case for both the Democratic and the Republican CNN/YouTube debates.

"The issues raised during last night’s debate were legitimate and relevant no matter who was asking the questions. The vested interests who are challenging the credibility of the questioners are trying to distract voters from the substantive issues they care most about. Americans are tired of that discredited low-road approach, and throughout this election campaign CNN will stay focused on what the candidates are saying about the pressing issues facing this country at a critical time in our history. Judging by the fact that last night's event was the most-watched primary debate ever, it seems that the audience responded to our focus on plain-spoken questions about important issues."

STATEMENT 2

“When choosing among the 5,000-or-so questions, CNN considered factors such as length, video quality and whether the question would help Republican primary voters select their presidential nominee. We sought a variety of questions on a variety of topics. We also sought to eliminate anyone with a direct role in a campaign and with one unfortunate exception, which we regret and have fully explained, we accomplished that.”—CNN political director Sam Feist

STATEMENT 3

Following the debate, CNN learned that retired brigadier general Keith Kerr served on Clinton's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender steering committee.

CNN Senior Vice President and Executive Producer of the debate, David Bohrman, says, "We regret this incident. CNN would not have used the General's question had we known that he was connected to any presidential candidate."

Prior to the debate, CNN had verified his military background and that he had not contributed any money to any presidential candidate.

Following the debate, Kerr told CNN that he's done no work for the Clinton campaign. He says he is a member of the Log Cabin Republicans and was representing no one other than himself.
 

Spinning in the Spin Room: My Moment with Chuck Norris

"It says something that, with all these important politicians in the room, Chuck Norris is drawing the biggest crowd."

A friend who works for a big local communications company made that observation to me in the "spin room" at the CNN/YouTube debate Wednesday -- a piece of the Mahaffey Theater's lobby which was curtained off and filled with surrogate advocates for most the Republican candidates, allowing them to argue their candidates' case before the dozens of reporters covering the event once the debate ended.

And the observation was a good one: notables such as onetime presidential comer George Allen, political consultant and TV pundit Bay Buchanan, New York congressman Peter King and Florida Sen. Mel Martinez couldn't hold a candle to Norris, who walked from TV camera to TV camera, trailing a huge scrum of reporters throughout the room.

My moment came when I asked whether he was concerned voters might dismiss Mike Huckabee because he had drafted a Hollywood actor to stump for him. Norris flashed a blinding, white smile before noting "I'm not a Hollywood actor any more." Jab! (he also claimed to have knocked out Huckabee when the two were sparring; I couldn't tell if he was joking)

Allen thought the sniping between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney over immigration helped Thompson,  citing an old campaign strategist's maxim: When a politician attacks another, they both go down. "Both (Romney and Giuliani) ended up looking bad," said Allen, whose use of the word "macaca" to describe a campaign worker for a rival candidate ended his political career last year. "Fred swooped in and came off looking like a good guy."

Buchanan insisted all the talk about illegal immigration added up to a win for Tom Tancredo, even though most of that talk didn't include him.

Gov. Charlie Crist insisted the people of Florida won the debate, even through he also had to acknowledge that there were few questions which dealt directly with issues the state finds most pressing. He also had no problem with CNN declining to air his You/Tube-submitted question, saying "I'd rather the people have the access to the candidates."

Huckabee also thought the fighting between Giuliani and Romney helped him, noting that "You never jump in the middle of two dogs fighting until they've worn themselves out." Huckabee, who gets points as the funniest GOP candidate, seemed fond of uncorking Arkansas-bred sayings to explain himself -- noting that he's comfortable joking around because "nobody wants their president to drink a bottle of vinegar and swallow a curtain rod before he goes to work." Um, yeah.

And Norris had one fun zinger left. When asked whether he would "open a can of whoop-ass" on anybody if President Huckabee asked him to, the karate master didn't miss a beat: "Absolutely," he replied.

Which made me inch away. Slowly.   

Surprise Loser in YouTube Debate: Anderson Cooper

I'm not sure who actually won tonight's CNN/YouTube debate -- distinguished mostly by the top candidates dancing around a series of surprisingly astute questions fielded from the public through the video sharing Web site.

But I know who lost: Host Anderson Cooper.

Clearly overmatched and a little surprised by the increased squabbling among the candidates, Cooper lost control of the debate too many times -- allowing candidates to eat up time with long stretches of one-on-one arguments, and refusing to call out politicians when they avoided answering the questions asked.

For example, one YouTuber faced the camera and said "The death penalty: What would Jesus do?" And even though Mike Huckabee spent long minutes recounting how he debated handing out  death sentence as Governor of Arkansas, he never got to Jesus' part. When Cooper pressed him to answer the question, he said cracked: "Jesus was too smart to run for public office." Answer over.

When Fred Thompson provided a YouTube-style campaign video for CNN which used past clips of Mitt Romney defending abortion and Huckabee appearing to agree to raise taxes, Cooper asked about the attack by saying "Senator Thompson -- What's up with that?" (Thompson looked a little embarrassed before cracking "I just wanted to give my buddies a little more air time.")

The candidates weren't directly confronted about their inability to answer some questions until Cooper turned to Brigadier Gen. Keith Kerr, a retired military man sitting in the audience who castigated the candidates for failing to answer his question about whether they think the American military isn't professional enough to work alongside openly gay people.

Unfortunately, Kerr turned a rebuke for non-answers into a speech about his own story of coming out after leaving military service and the continuing discrimination against gay people in the armed forces. It was another example of how Cooper let an element of the show spin out of CNN's control, violating the channel's own goal of weeding out "gotcha" questions posed by Democrats to embarrass all the candidates.

(Now Republican bloggers and Fox News are reporting that Kerr was a member of a steering committee of gay supporters for Hillary Clinton; Cooper said during his show, Anderson Cooper 360, that CNN would not have used his question if they knew this allegation was true).

Every candidate dropped at least one doozy of a statement: Huckabee wants to eliminate the IRS and rely on retail sales taxes to run the government (he should ask Florida how well that works); Ron Paul wants to eliminate the departments of Energy and Education; John McCain blamed the American people's homefront reactions for losing the Vietnam War while Fred Thompson said overturning the abortion law Roe vs. Wade should be America's "number One priority" and Romney advocated denying the children of illegal immigrants the most basic health and education services.

The America advocated by this bunch sounded like a mean-spirited, paranoid place, where politicians are more comfortable pledging to kick the children of illegal immigrants out of the country than pledging to take on government subsidies handed to big farming companies. (One upsetting moment for me: Duncan Hunter telling the American people to buy American while Christmas shopping when American retailers such as Wal-Mart are stocked to the gills with cheap goods made in China, Korea and Vietnam. Is he going to insist they buy American this Christmas, too?)

Cooper aside, Romney came out the biggest loser here. At turns too slick and too halting, he managed to reinforce his image as a flip-flopper and an overly programmed candidate. McCain sat above much of the infighting like a wise Yoda -- particularly on the issue of waterboarding military prisoners -- but can't get past his support for immigration reform and a still-unpopular war. Thompson showed more life and knowledge of the issues, but offered few new ideas, leaving Huckabee in a great position as the most reasonable, human-sounding candidate who wasn't really attacked very badly during the debate.

My next post will talk a bit about the backstage stuff, including info on the "spin room," where celebrities such as action star Chuck Norris and former Senator George "Macaca" Allen were spinning journalists on the debate's outcome.

Here's the acoustic ballad which kicked off the debate:

       

   

Relax Dancing Fans: Castroneves' Win Was Supposed to Happen

I imagine the blogosphere is burning up this morning with fans complaining about Brazilian race car driver Helio Castroneves' surprise win on Tuesday night's finale of Dancing with the Stars.

Once Castroneves had finished his final dance last night, it was painfully obvious he couldn't match the power and grace of Spice Girl Melanie Brown, whose mastery of all the dance styles covered by the show has been awesome to behold.

So why isn't this critic complaining that he beat Brown when all the votes were totaled? (hint: It's not because this was a win I predicted)

As I explain in a story for today's newspaper, Dancing's voters seem to reward those who make the biggest transformation. And Scary Spice, as proficient as she has been, made a living for many years singing and dancing onstage. Castroneves, as a cute, charismatic neophyte, distinguished himself by plunging into the competition with gusto -- something the fans often reward.

Castroneves also lucked out because he aced Monday's night performances -- which sparked the audience votes leading to his win. Had the fan vote been based on Tuesday night's final dances, I think Mel B.'s perfect mambo might have wiped the floor with the indy 500 champ.

As it was, I do think the judges punked out a bit by giving both finalist couples perfect scores for their final dances, leaving the decision mostly to the audience vote. Even though Brown ate up the dance floor in her final performance, the experts turned away when their expertise was most needed -- likely to avoid looking like spoilers.

In the end, I was just happy that Marie Osmond got cut 30 minutes into last night's finale.  Between the fainting, the endless grinning and the non-stop jokes about her age, Osmond was wearing out her TV welcome faster than Rosie O'Donnell at a Young Republicans' dinner.

Countdown to CNN/YouTube Debate: Media Madness Comes to St. Petersburg

I can't tell you for sure whether Billiam, the snowman concerned about global warming in the first CNN/YouTube debate, will make an appearance at tomorrow's reprise here in St. Petersburg.

But I can tell you who won't be appearing: Gov. Charlie Crist.

"I can break the rules and tell you we will not be using the governor's question," said David Bohrman, the CNN executive in charge of the debate, during a walk-through of the debate hall with local and national media a couple of hours ago. "Governors have access to these candidates already. We got lots of questions submitted by celebrities and someone well known. We wanted to showcase questions from the people."

Here's Crist question; judge for yourself whether it was worthy of inclusion:

The Mahaffey Theater has the feel of a giant TV studio set, tricked out with an array of lights, teleprompters and camera positions. At stage right, a huge, 25-foot wide definition video screen proudly displayed the event's logo; on Wednesday, that screen will feature each of the 40 or so questions expected to form the meat of tomorrow night's debate.

Host Anderson Cooper hadn't arrived yet.  Flying in from Los Angeles tonight, he was expected to huddle with producers and winnow down the final group of questions to 60 or 70 potentials. Looking at the grand display, including a wide backdrop incorporating the logos of CNN, YouTube, Progress energy and Republican Party of Florida, one local TV reporter wondered how much it all cost.

Bohrman, a big bear of man who sounds like an old hand on the eve of his second YouTube-affiliated debate, handed the assembled media deftly. No, there will be no "gotcha" questions submitted by those who seem to be from the Democratic side of the issues. Yes, the feel of the nearly 5,000 questions submitted is different than the 3,000 or so submitted for the Democrats.

Fun facts: Kirk Douglas submitted a question ("No one even flagged it for us," said Bohrman, who noted somebody stumbled on it while sorting through questions.) Democratic candidates Chris Dodd and Dennis Kucinich submitted queries, too (don't expect to see them on camera, tomorrow).

And some publicists were buzzing over news that action movie star Chuck Norris was expected to stand in a corner of the Mahaffey lobby reserved as "the spin room" -- where flacks for each candidate provide soundbites to the assembled press -- in support of Mike Huckabee (What's his campaign slogan? "Vote for me or Chuck Norris will kick your ass?")

The buzz was heady enough that Bohrman wasn't even bothered that ABC News and Facebook tried to steal a bit of their thunder, announcing Monday that they would present to back-to-back debates in New Hampshire days before the primary there.

"It's about time somebody followed us," he said, noting that it remained unclear how Facebook users would impact the actual debate. "This is a radical though here -- every question comes from YouTube. I don't think we'll see another presidential cycle where there's no public participation in a debate." 

Check out Huckabee's commercial featuring the Chuckster. If his policies weren't so awful,I'd crossparty lines to vote for him....

Dancing with the Stars Recap: Is it Marie's 10,000-Watt Smile or Helio's Ability?

After watching last night's dances before final voting in ABC's ratings juggernaut Dancing with the Stars, I'm even more confused.

Is this show an actual dance competition, where contestants are expected to, you know, demonstrate ability in particular dance styles? Or is it a popularity contest augmented with spangles and tights?

That answer should come in tonight's two-hour finale, which likely pits Marie's Osmond's super-dazzling smile and legions of old school fans against the show's hidden, dark horse favorite, race car driver Helios Castroneves.

if you haven't been watching every episode -- even I haven't been doing that, and I get paid to watch TV -- my colleague Kate Brassfield did an excellent job of recapping all the dancers and one of the show's major themes: transformation. Last night's show was also an excellent summation, with Castroneves' energy and stunts -- only a pint-size guy could handle a carwheel turn holding his partner through the entire spin the way he did last night -- proving an able counter to Osmond's oddball, slightly corny freestyle and spice girl Mel B.'s sexy, super-efficient moves.

It's been one of the more bizarre DWTS in recent memory, with Osmond cast as the Sanjaya of the bunch -- using her energy and popularity to leapfrog ahead of better dancers, such as Cheetah Girl Sabrina Bryan. And there's the non-dancing drama: from Osmond's fainting spell and the recent death of her dad to the passing of competitor Jane Seymour's mother and her bout with food poisoning (not to mention allegations of romance between Bryan, Castroneves and the pro dancers who serve as their onstage partners).   

Here's my odds on who's left:

Helio Castroneves and Julianne Hough -- Even Money: Yeah, celebrity-wise, the Brazilian race car driver likely has the smallest fan base. But he nailed the coolest dance last night, which seems to count for a lot. And the obvious sparks of romance between Castroneves (who delayed a wedding to someone else to compete in the show) and pint-size fireball Hough are pretty cute.

Marie Osmond and Jonathan Roberts -- 2 to 1: People still love America's sweetheart, even though her increasingly strained smile seems to hide a surprisingly fragile ego (can we stop, stop, STOP all the you-go-girl references to her age?) and dysfunctional private life. I'm betting she's starting to get on America's nerves as much as she is my own.

Melanie Brown and Maksim Chmerkovskiy -- 5 to 1: Transformation-wise, Scary Spice's journey from celebrity wild child to sleek, sexy bombshell has been the biggest  leap. But her poised, increasingly proficient displays often lack the gutsy sizzle which Dancing audiences seem to crave. And I'm betting the sales figures for the last Spice Girls record are close to the numbers of those who watch Castroneves' last race.    

Facebook and ABC: Does an Online-Associated Debate Without Significant User Participation Really Matter?

If I'm correctly reading the information initially circulated by ABC and Facebook, the two debates they are presenting in New Hampshire Jan. 5, just three days before the state's primaries, will feature even less input from online users than the CNN/YouTube matchups.

According to the releases provided earlier today, ABC will allow Facebook members to follow material provided by its campaign reporters before, during and after the debate, which users can discuss in special Debate Groups. Users can also email their favorite reporters and answers polls. Still, while I'm sure the network will find some way to reference the material during its broadcast, I expect anchor/questioner Charles Gibson to live up to his image as the nation's most traditional network news anchor and limit the material coming into the actual debate from online.

This is a "push" event; the network is mostly pushing information at Facebooks users, with limited venues provided for members to substantively influence any of it. I wonder, in the age of user-generated video, citizen journalism and widespread blogging, whether this will feel like a mostly old-fashioned anachronism.   

Which is too bad -- so far, the online component of this debate series seems more like a gimmick than the CNN/YouTube event, which at least features questions asked by average people even if the actual queries are selected by CNN. As more of these partnerships are announced, media outlets will discover what works and what doesn't as pundits like me figure out whether it actually changes anything.

Click below for the official release; decide for yourself....

Anderson Cooper Sells the CNN/YouTube Debate

Like all good anchors, Anderson Cooper is a pretty good salesman when he wants to be.

And when we talked on the afternoon before CNN's last Democratic debate in Las Vegas Nov. 15, what Cooper was selling was the notion that Wednesday's GOP debate in St. Petersburg featuring questions submitted by the public on YouTube was as user-friendly as it could be. In other words, CNN wasn't going to let the Internet community choose which questions the candidates would answer.

"There was criticism that all the questions should have been voted by people online, and I think all of us wish that would be possible," said Cooper, speaking by cellphone. "It’s frankly just technically not possible because you would have campaigns basically stacking the deck, trying to … I mean, you don’t have an online voting system which at this point can fairly judge that kind of thing. You would have campaigns completely stacking the deck to try to get the questions they want asked to their candidate. And we already saw attempts at that in terms of campaigns getting particular … trying to get people to ask particular questions. We kind of pointed that out and made fun of it a little bit in the debate the first time."

Cooper makes a valid point that naysayers of this debate have had a hard time refuting. David Bohrman, CNN's Washington bureau chief and executive in charge of organizing the cable newschannel's debates, has already said many times this debate's questions will focus on intra-party issues, as opposed to grilling them on a controversial stance which every candidate accepts, like,say, gay marriage.

So CNN is choosing the debate questions from some 4,000 submitted up to yesterday's deadline -- including some solicited and filmed by the St. Petersburg Times -- and Cooper promises to try and make them better-looking and just as odd as the Democrats' lineup back in July. I asked Coop a few questions about what we might see, and since the paper only ran a small slice of our conversation on the front page today, here's a longer, but still heavily edited version of our exchange: 

Bob Hite Apologizes On Air; Issue of DUI Coverage Rises Again

Here's a clip of Bob Hite addressing his DUI arrest in the 11 p.m. broadcast Wednesday night. It was an echo of the apology Thomas Lake wrote about in his well-crafted story for Thursday's paper following up on the initial news of the anchor's trouble.

As some posters have pointed out, WFLA isn't the only local station or media outlet to have staffers who have made similar mistakes. Rival WFTS-Ch. 28 is without general manager Bill Carey because of his actions during an alleged drunk driving incident -- Carey has been suspended, likely until the legal issues are resolved.

WTSP-Ch. 10 anchor Reginald Roundtree faced DUI charges in 2006, though he denied driving drunk and eventually pleaded no contest to reckless driving. Tampa Tribune executive editor Janet Coats, former Times TV Critic Chase Squires and former Times Tampa entertainment writer Rick Gershman also have all been arrested for the same crime.

As I noted back when Coats was arrested, there are plenty of media professionals who feel news outlets shouldn't bother covering DUI arrests of local celebrities; here's a blog post from a Texas TV newsman chewing over the issue when an anchor in his community was arrested. Few have lost their jobs over such arrests, through the public shame of the media coverage is always significant.