Media Coverage of the 2012 Presidential Election Analysis

Introduction: A Divided Nation and a Contentious Election

The diverse and sometimes ugly stories, attacks, and reports published in print and broadcast across media — including electronic media — during the 2012 U.S. presidential election campaign reflect just how divided the nation had become. These stories and ads say as much about the moral state of America, and about how out-of-control politically motivated money had grown, as they do about the campaign or the candidates. Rarely in recent American history have conservatives and progressives been so bitterly divided, attacking one another with such fierce antipathy — particularly in the form of conservative attacks against progressives. Nor had there previously been an election in which millions of dollars flowed into campaign coffers from corporations and individuals with zero accountability as to the source.

Some observers suggest that because President Barack Obama is an African-American, those opposed to him have been particularly virulent in their attacks. Others argue this election is really about two competing ideologies: those who are conservative — generally anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, and skeptical of the scientific consensus on global warming and evolution — versus those who are progressive, tending to be pro-choice, supportive of same-sex marriage, and accepting of empirically driven science. These issues had been simmering for years, and were coming to a head with Obama symbolizing, for the right wing, the Tea Party, the GOP, and conservative Christians, all that they believed was wrong with America.

This election process brought bitterly opposing social and ideological divisions into public view through the media, which itself was taking sides — but in ways far more potentially harmful to democratic ideals than in previous cycles. This paper reviews and critically analyzes the media's role, and the role of money interests, in the contest between Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama.

Three central questions guide the analysis: (a) What role should the media play in presidential elections? (b) What has been the role of media in recent elections? (c) What role is the media currently playing in the 2012 presidential election, which is being unduly influenced — and arguably corrupted — by an avalanche of murky money sources made possible by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision?

Literature Review: Media and Recent Presidential Elections

An article in the peer-reviewed journal MIS Quarterly (Wattal et al., 2010) points to the evolution of digital media as an important element in the 2008 presidential election. Looking back to 1948, Wattal notes that President Harry Truman tried a strategy that had not previously been used — he logged 21,928 miles in four months aboard a train. It was the "whistle-stop" approach, and many observers believe it tipped the electoral scales in his favor. Truman reached out to people who would never previously have been in a position to see a sitting president campaign in their town.

The authors then fast-forward to 2008, when Barack Obama reached out to millions of people through electronic means — video sharing, blogs, and text messaging — giving online users the ability to interact directly with the campaign, receive information without the intermediary of television, radio, or newspapers, and become directly involved. Supporters could make campaign contributions through www.mybarackobama.com or take instructions from the campaign to set up neighborhood phone banks and participate in organized voter outreach around the country (Wattal, 670).

Researchers referenced by Wattal note that while Truman's campaign was about places, Obama's campaign was about spaces, as it "moved to the space of mybarackobama.com" (671). The authors correctly noted that Obama was savvy in leveraging digital media because "candidates arguably have very little direct control of traditional media or Web publications" (675). But candidates can create their own world on YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace and through supporter-produced blogs, reducing their dependence on what traditional media says about them.

The authors conclude with a pointed question: "Will the Internet change the form of political discourse? Has the form of discourse changed the content, or are voters simply moving from shouting slogans on streets to slogans on the Web?" (Wattal, 682). Their answer is that "the Internet, and especially the blogosphere, can influence the campaign process and the results of elections," and may "foster a new generation of politicians who ignore 'big money' tactics in favor of grassroots campaigns" (Wattal, 683).

Citizens United and the Flood of Dark Money

As to Wattal's optimistic conclusion — published in 2010 — any thought that grassroots campaigns would spell the difference in the 2012 election proved to be pure fantasy. That is not to say that grassroots online organizing, as Obama's 2008 campaign demonstrated so effectively, was completely irrelevant. But thanks to the Citizens United v. FEC decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court in January 2010, corporations officially achieved "personhood," and they — along with unlimited numbers of donors with sometimes extreme agendas — became free to shower favored candidates with unreported millions while attacking those they wished to defeat.

According to law professor Anne Tucker, the High Court's conception of "corporate political speech in Citizens United reveals flaws in the Court's assumptions about how corporations speak" (Tucker, 2011, 499). In fact, Tucker continues, the Court's decision flies in the face of "traditional corporate law principles" (499).

Tucker identifies five distinct realities of corporate political speech that were ignored by the High Court in Citizens United: (a) corporate speech, "even when political," always has "an economic motivation"; (b) "there is no singular corporate voice"; (c) when corporate political "speech" is allowed to go "unrestricted," it poses a risk of "compelled speech"; (d) corporate speech is already regulated "based solely on the identity of the corporate speaker"; and (e) laws governing corporate behavior, including securities regulations, "employ the equalization rationale" (Tucker, 499).

By effectively removing the funding of presidential elections from legitimate campaigns obligated to disclose contributions, and handing it over to corporations and big money that face no such disclosure requirements, the High Court overturned a long legal history of regulating corporate political speech (Tucker, 500). The Tillman Act of 1907 had prevented corporations from acting as citizens, and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 — championed by Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Russ Feingold — were both rendered moot by the ruling.

When a Google search is conducted using the keywords "Citizens United and the 2012 election," approximately 47,000 results appear. Among the links: "Thanks, Supreme Court! We now have the best elections money can buy"; "Justice Stevens on Citizens United"; "Scott Walker Wisconsin Recall Also a Battle Against Citizens United"; "2012: The Campaign of Cash"; and "After Citizens United, Is a Constitutional Amendment Needed?" — among many others reflecting the breadth of public concern.

Among the most significant sidebar stories related to the unprecedented flood of mystery cash being pumped into campaigns is the power that billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch planned to wield. An article in the Huffington Post reports that the brothers — who have long supported conservative causes and provided millions to groups opposing same-sex marriage and other progressive positions — planned to spend "as much as $400 million to defeat President Barack Obama and help Republicans win control of Congress" (Stone, 2012).

The Koch brothers told sources that they would bankroll the National Rifle Association, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Right to Life Committee, Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition, and the American Future Fund, among others (Stone, p. 2). A gathering of "a few dozen rich conservatives and consultants from Wall Street, Las Vegas, California and other locales" met with the Koch brothers in Palm Beach to discuss where the money should be spent. One notable attendee was Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, described as a "major player in court challenges to the constitutionality of President Obama's health care reforms" (Stone, p. 3).

The NRA's role in this spending landscape is also notable. The organization, which supports Republicans and opposes Democrats in virtually every election, was planning a "multimillion dollar 'Trigger the Vote' registration drive, expected to be its largest ever," according to the NRA's top lobbyist Chris Cox (Stone, p. 3). Cox stated that millions of gun owners remained unregistered to vote, and despite the Obama administration having proposed no gun-control legislation, the NRA was prepared to campaign aggressively against him.

U.S. Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky was also part of a media campaign sponsored by the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) (Wing, 2012) — a mass-email project asserting that Obama had blocked a million legitimate rifles from entering the U.S. Like the NRA, the NAGR invoked the claim that the government planned to confiscate citizens' firearms, an assertion maintained by gun advocacy groups despite the fact that no U.S. president or session of Congress in modern times had ever attempted to repeal the Second Amendment or disarm law-abiding citizens.

Rand Paul's participation centered on the so-called "Million Rifle Ban" — a protest against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) decision to block the import of hundreds of thousands of Korean War-era rifles (Wing, p. 2). The federal government's stated rationale was concern that these rifles could "be easily modified into machine guns" (Badash, 2012). According to David Badash, the mass emails used to stir up antipathy toward Obama relied on "ludicrous reports from right wing media like World Net Daily and FOX News." First, there were approximately 600,000 such rifles, not a million. Second, the ATF has a legitimate responsibility to prevent the influx of weapons that pose public safety risks. Most notably, the photo used in Rand Paul's mass email depicted a rifle pointed at Obama's head, urging recipients to "Stop Obama's Gun Ban" (Badash).

Conclusion: Democracy on Shaky Ground

There are so many more instances of media misuse in this election cycle — literally dozens of documented lies and racist smears from the most prominent conservative media personality in America, Rush Limbaugh — and the list continues to grow. The road to Election Day, November 6, 2012, is sure to be rocky, filled with attack ads funded by millions of dollars from sources that remain hidden and unaccountable. American democracy is on genuinely shaky ground, and the most troubling aspect is that the media — once a watchdog against dishonesty and corruption — is not doing its job. In too many instances, the media cannot be counted on for solutions because it has become part of the problem.

Works Cited

Badash, David. (2012). Gun Pointed at Obama's Head in Sen. Rand Paul's Fraudulent Fundraiser. The New Civil Rights Movement. Retrieved June 1, 2012, from http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com.

Boehlert, Eric. (2012). Birthers, Billionaires and FOX: The GOP Freak Show in Full Effect. Media Matters for America. Retrieved June 2, 2012, from http://mediamatters.org.

Kramer, Melody. (2010). 'Citizens United' Ruling Opened Floodgates on Groups' Ad Spending. National Public Radio. Retrieved June 2, 2012, from http://www.npr.org.

Little Tboca. (2012). Conservative Bloggers Working Together to Take Back America. Retrieved June 1, 2012.

Stone, Peter H. (2012). Koch Brothers Plan to Funnel Tens of Millions to Conservative Allies to Influence 2012 Elections. Huff Post Politics. Retrieved June 1, 2012, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com.

Tucker, Anne. (2011). Flawed Assumptions: A Corporate Law Analysis of Free Speech and Corporate Personhood in Citizens United. Case Western Reserve Law Review, 61(2), 497–550.

Wattal, Sunil, Schuff, David, Mandiviwalla, Munir, and Williams, Christine B. (2010). Web 2.0 and Politics: The 2008 U.S. Presidential Election and an E-Politics Research Agenda. MIS Quarterly, 34(4), 669–688.

Wiist, William H. (2011). Citizens United, Public Health, and Democracy: The Supreme Court Ruling, Its Implications, and Proposed Action. American Journal of Public Health, 101(7), 1172–1178.

Wing, Nick. (2012). Rand Paul Backs Gun Campaign Featuring Image of Rifle Pointing at Obama's Head. Huffington Post. Retrieved June 1, 2012, from http://huffingtonpost.com.

Zurbriggen, Eileen L., and Sherman, Aurora M. (2010). Race and Gender in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election: A Content Analysis of Editorial Cartoons. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 10(1), 223–247.