The latest Gallup poll shows Hillary Clinton solidly ahead — and rising — in the Democratic race. Yet as Politico points out, if you listen to “the developing media storyline” it’s Obama who has the surging mo’. And if you listen to the self-declared netroots in blogs, you’d believe that Hillary is sinking fast.
So we here at PrezVid decided to quantify this gap by measuring coverage of Clinton and Obama in news media overall, in major MSM outlets, in blogs, and in the Democratic netroots. It’s our first PrezVid Syncometer. So how out of sync are they? About as out of sync as Sanjaya.
We start with the Gallup poll:
Note Clinton’s wide lead and Obama’s slight dip (though, as John Bracken points out in the comments, that dip is within the margin of error). Her lead only widens without Gore in the race:
Says Gallup:
Sen. Hillary Clinton remains the dominant presidential front-runner among Democrats nationally, with twice the support as her nearest challenger. Sen. Barack Obama, former Sen. John Edwards, and former Vice President Al Gore are tightly bunched in second place, with all other candidates in low single digits. If Gore is removed from the ballot and his supporters’ second-place choices substituted, Clinton’s lead becomes even more dominant, with Obama and Edwards tied far behind.
These data were collected April 2-5, just as reports of Obama’s first-quarter fundraising success were made public. The survey results suggest that while Obama may have had a great deal of financial momentum in the past quarter, it was not matched by any increase in voter support. . . .
The trend for Obama has been relatively static. The Illinois senator ends up in this latest April poll essentially where he was last January; Obama gets exactly half of the vote given to Clinton.
That sure doesn’t seem to be the story we hear from media, does it? Let’s see:
Now we go to GoogleNews and search on the two leaders. Over the last 30 days, it returns:
Hillary Clinton: 8,908 articles
Barack Obama: 13,992 articles
So media as a whole give Obama the mo’.
Well, what about the biggest, most sophisticated outlets of political coverage in America? Same search over the last 30 days yields this at the New York Times:
Hillary Clinton: 28 articles
Barack Obama: 95 articles
And at the Washington Post:
Hillary Clinton: 108 articles
Barack Obama: 252 articles
Obviously, these searches operate differently. But the relative results are the same. The mo’ won’t quit.
The troubled LA Times, however, stands apart:
Hillary Clinton: 77 articles
Barack Obama: 69 articles
So let’s go to the blogosphere. According to Blogpulse, the coverage and comment for the two candidates is at least even-handed:
And finally, let’s check the netroots. MyDD, a leading blog, just held its straw poll. The results:
Edwards first. Clinton fourth. Way, way behind. Boy, those results don’t look like those from Gallup — from the real voters. At the Politics Online conference in Washington a few weeks ago, I remember one of the many pundits there arguing that Hillary has no grass roots support and momentum because you can’t find it in the blogosphere. Well, maybe in one blog.
: SEE ALSO: Google Trends.
