Category Archives: Election 2012

Obama Romney debate moderator Candy Crowley liberal bias, Crowley selects audience questions , Crowley will not follow rules, Biased history

“I recall standing out in very chilly Springfield, Illinois, when Barack Obama announced. And a lot of people I talked to there said, ‘Oh, you’re an Obama supporter?’ I said no, but you know, this might be history. I wanted to bring my kid. Same with Hillary Clinton. I brought my daughter, you know, because I think this might be history.”…CNN’s Candy Crowley on American Morning, February 1, 2008

“Not every item of news should be published: rather must
those who control news policies endeavor to make every item
of news serve a certain purpose.”… Joseph Goebbels

“Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.”…George Washington

***  Update Oct. 17, 2012, 8:35 AM  ***

Candy Crowley did not disappoint us. She performed as her history and associations predicted. More on this later today.

From Media Research Center October 16, 2012.

“MRC Study: By 2-to-1 Margin, Journalists Favor Liberal Questions at Town Hall Debates”

“Tonight’s town hall-style presidential debate will ostensibly feature questions from undecided voters, but the evening’s agenda will really be decided by the moderator, as CNN’s Candy Crowley will select which of the more than roughly 80 voters in the room will actually get a chance to talk to the candidates.

Reviewing the five previous town hall debates, the journalist-moderators have tended to skew the agenda of these so-called citizen forums to the liberal side of the spectrum, but not always. In 2004, ABC’s Charles Gibson selected a balanced menu of questions, with questions from the left matching those from the right.

But Gibson is the lone exception. The other journalists who have moderated these forums — ABC’s Carole Simpson in 1992, PBS’s Jim Lehrer in 1996 and 2000, and NBC’s Tom Brokaw in 2008 — all favored liberal agenda questions as they chose which of the undecided voters would actually participate in the debate.

The bottom line: if history is a reliable guide, Mitt Romney has twice the chance of facing a hostile liberal question Tuesday night as Barack Obama has of facing a question based on a conservative agenda, as the record shows a 2-to-1 tilt to the left in past town hall debates.

The Media Research Center has examined the agenda of every town hall debate since the format debuted 20 years ago. In the 1992 Bush-Clinton-Perot debate in Richmond, we scored eight audience questions as straightforward requests for information, four liberal questions, and no conservative questions. One participant that year described the election as about choosing a father who would take care of citizens, whom he referred to as “children.”

The focus of my work as a domestic mediator is meeting the needs of the children that I work with, by way of their parents, and not the wants of their parents. And I ask the three of you, how can we, as symbolically the children of the future president, expect the two of you, the three of you to meet our needs, the needs in housing and in crime and you name it, as opposed to the wants of your political spin doctors and your political parties?

Four years later, we tallied ten questions as straightforward, five as conveying a liberal agenda, and three as conservative. That year, one voter asked Bill Clinton whether he had “plans to expand the Family Leave Act,” while another insisted during a discussion of health care that “the private sector is a problem.”

In 2000, moderator Jim Lehrer favored liberal questions by an 8-to-2 margin over conservative questions. Examples from that debate: One voter asked George W. Bush and Al Gore: “Would you be open to the ideal of a national health care plan for everybody?” while another targeted Bush:

We’d like to know why you object to the Brady handgun bill, if you do object to it. Because in a recent TV ad, it showed that the [NRA] says if you are elected that they will be working out of your office…actually, that kind of bothers me.

In 2004, anchor Charles Gibson picked an ideologically balanced set of questions: eight from the left/pro-Kerry, eight from the right/pro-Bush and two ambiguous/neutral. From the left, one voter lectured then-President Bush about the “intensity of aggravation that other countries had with how we handled the Iraq situation,” while another complained about the Patriot Act “which takes away checks on law enforcement and weakens American citizens’ rights and freedoms….Why are my rights being watered down?”

But balancing the night, Gibson also showcased a voter who posed this tough question to John Kerry: “You’ve stated your concern for the rising cost of health care, yet you chose a vice presidential candidate who has made millions of dollars successfully suing medical professionals. How do you reconcile this with the voters?”

Another voter aimed at Kerry’s cynical use of stem cell research to paint Republicans as anti-science. “Senator Kerry, thousands of people have already been cured or treated by the use of adult stem cells or umbilical cord stem cells. However, no one has been cured by using embryonic stem cells. Wouldn’t it be wise to use stem cells obtained without the destruction of an embryo?”

In 2008, NBC’s Tom Brokaw selected a dozen questions from citizens — three from the left, none from the right, and nine that were neutral/informational. The Obama-McCain town hall debate took place at the height of the financial panic that year, and one voter demanded to know “What’s the fastest, most positive solution to bail these people [retirees and workers] out of the economic ruin?”

Another voter wanted to see a flurry of legislation to create “green jobs,” telling John McCain: “We saw that Congress moved pretty fast in the face of an economic crisis. I want to know, what you would do within the first two years to make sure that Congress moves fast as far as environmental issues, like climate change and green jobs?”

As the Gibson example shows, a moderator has it within their power to ensure an ideologically balanced discussion of the issues — to serve all of the potential voters who might be watching. It’s up to Crowley to determine whether the candidates will face equally tough questioning, or whether the liberal Barack Obama will face a friendlier agenda than Mitt Romney.”

http://www.mrc.org/media-reality-check/mrc-study-2-1-margin-journalists-favor-liberal-questions-town-hall-debates

Candy Crowley has stated she will not abide by the rules.

From Politico October 16, 2012.

“In an interview with CNN this afternoon, Candy Crowley reiterated that, like past town-hall debate moderators, she intends to do more than just hold the microphone at tonight’s debate in Hempstead, N.Y. — an intention that has caused concern for both campaigns.

“They will call on ‘Alice,’ and ‘Alice’ will stand up and ask a question. Both candidates will answer. Then there’s time for a follow-up question, facilitating a discussion, whatever you want to call it,” Crowley said. “So if Alice asks oranges, and someone answers apples, there’s the time to go, ‘But Alice asked oranges? What’s the answer to that?” Or, ‘Well, you say this, but what about that?'”

(Also on POLITICO: 5 things to watch at the debate)

Crowley’s vision of her role at tonight’s debate is in keeping with past town hall debates, but it would defy the expectations agreed to by both campaigns in the co-signed memorandum of understanding, obtained and released yesterday by Time’s Mark Halperin. From section 7, part (c), sub-part (iv) (italics mine):

7. Additional Rules Apllicable to the October 16 Debate…

(c) With respect to all questions…

(iv) The moderator will not ask follow-up questions or comment on either the questions asked by the audience or the answers of the candidates during the debate or otherwise intervene in the debate except to acknowledge the questioners from the audience or enforce the time limits, and invite candidate comments during the 2 minute response period.

There is hardly any gray area here. Crowley is expected to do nothing except to acknowledge questioners, enforce the time limits, and invite candidate comments. Many people — especially journalists — would and have objected to that, but that’s the agreement. ”

Read more:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/10/crowley-promises-to-defy-debate-contract-138596.html

Candy Crowley’s history.

From News Busters August 15, 2012.

“Affirmative-action lovers were thrilled that CNN’s Candy Crowley would be the first female to moderate a presidential debate since Carole Simpson’s sneering turn in 1992. Crowley deserves the opportunity after being in the field of political news for decades, and is the closest thing the current crop of moderators has to a Tim Russert type in being able to question firmly both sides of the aisle.

However, Crowley still fits within the CNN media-elite mold of liberalism, and not just with her unfortunate channeling of “some Republicans” on Saturday who anonymously felt the Paul Ryan pick “looks a little bit like some sort of ticket death wish.” Below are a list of some of Crowley’s more liberal moments on the CNN airwaves:

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“Usually you kind of give the President a pass on leaking confidential stuff.” – CNN’s Candy Crowley on Obama’s self-promoting national security leaks, June 10, 2012 State of the Union.

“Let me talk to you a little about the swing state of Virginia, and I want to show our viewers your unemployment rate which has basically stayed two to three points below the national unemployment rate. It’s a success story really. Okay? You like this. I understand that. But, but, even as you embrace it as a Republican governor, does it not make it difficult for Mitt Romney, who has the same problem in other swing states, to come in and say, ‘The economy is terrible and, you know, you need to elect a new president?’ Because Virginia is doing very well under President Obama. – CNN’s Candy Crowley to Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, June 3, 2012 State of the Union.

“Do you have a problem with being inclusive, because most people do look at Republicans going ‘They’re a conservative bunch of white guys who want to protect Big Oil.’ And now you’re even hearing Republicans saying, ‘It’s not big enough. We haven’t opened up the tent door.’” – CNN’s Candy Crowley touting an Arnold Schwarzenegger op-ed to Newt Gingrich, May 6, 2012 State of the Union.

“We have a poll where the majority of Americans said you all need to compromise on this debt ceiling, you all need to raise the debt ceiling, and it out to be — the deal ought to include a combination of tax increases and spending cuts. You are opposed to both raising the debt ceiling and that kind of compromise. So doesn’t that put you outside the mainstream?” – CNN’s Candy Crowley to Rep. Michele Bachmann, August 14, 2011 State of the Union.

“There’s that term, ‘penny wise and pound foolish.’ Would you worry that, by cutting off those services, people…would have sicker babies, or certain people…wouldn’t have HIV testing…and that would just cost us more?” – CNN’s Candy Crowley questioning Rep. Steve King on Planned Parenthood subsidies while guest-hosting The Situation Room on February 18, 2011.

“So let’s get down to the basic question, who’s going to get hurt in this budget?…So you have said in an editorial you wrote that the budget is an expression of our values and aspirations. So if I look at this what we call discretionary spending, things we don’t have to spend on, you want to cut back community development block programs. That creates jobs in communities; it helps them with infrastructure, that kind of thing. Home heating assistance; education, as you just mentioned. You’re also going to do — the Great Lakes Restoration Fund Initiative is getting a pretty healthy cut in what they get from the feds, eight states involved, in trying to keep the Great Lakes economically viable. What does that say about our values and aspirations?: – CNN’s Candy Crowley pressing Obama budget director Jack Lew from the left on State of the Union, February 13, 2011.

“It’s probably less of a phony issue than a passe issue. This might have had some resonance had he done it early on, and he had a whole, you know, springtime to begin to, you know, chip away. The problem is, that the economy just came down on him.” – CNN’s Candy Crowley after the third presidential debate raised the issue of Obama’s friendship with radical Sixties bomber Bill Ayers, October 15, 2008.

“If you raised more than a quarter billion dollars in the primary season, would you limit yourself to $85 million in the fall campaign? Duh!” – CNN’s Candy Crowley’s spin when Obama decided to break his promise to abide by campaign spending limits to accept public financing, June 19, 2008.

“I recall standing out in very chilly Springfield, Illinois, when Barack Obama announced. And a lot of people I talked to there said, ‘Oh, you’re an Obama supporter?’ I said no, but you know, this might be history. I wanted to bring my kid. Same with Hillary Clinton. I brought my daughter, you know, because I think this might be history.” – CNN’s Candy Crowley on American Morning, February 1, 2008.”

Read more:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2012/08/15/cnns-moderator-candy-crowley-political-news-pro-still-liberal-media-elit

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