Day 15: October 21

14 days to Election Day

The show opens with an analysis of a series of new polls on individual issues. Obama is leading among likely voters on almost every issue, including handling the economy, health care, taxes, handling the mortgage/housing crisis, energy and gasoline, the Wall Street crisis, and turnout and enthusiasm of voters. Meanwhile, the candidates have dueling pie analogies about the economy, as McCain says Obama's more worried about giving your piece of the pie to someone else than about growing the pie, where Obama says that the pie is shrinking and that's the problem. Howard Fineman joins the show here to do some of both kinds of reporting: he spent the day in the Obama headquarters, so he reports on the mood among the candidate's advisers and volunteers; also, he reports that David Plouffe told him that the campaign will not, as rumored, be giving some of its money to the DNC for use in downticket races. This is all descriptive journalism, but then Olbermann asks him several speculative questions: whether Obama has finally erased the doubts of undecided voters, how much longer McCain will use the Joe the Plumber/socialist attacks on Obama since they are evidently not working, and if McCain even has a plan or strategy at this point. This is all interpretation and inference, as well as some game schema -- since this is mostly based on polls, and McCain is cast as the "candidate losing ground."

Richard Wolffe then comes on to do some more interpretation. Olbermann reports on some polling that shows that Sarah Palin is the biggest drag on McCain's candidacy, bigger than his connection to George W. Bush and the economy. He also cites one pollster as saying that the main reason this has happened is because she has become a caricature of herself, and the public cannot take her seriously. He asks Wolffe whether McCain should have dropped Palin from the ticket before the vice presidential debate, whether she was a serious pick or a summer campaign gimmick, if voters are making a distinction between problems inherited by McCain (Bush, the economy) and problems he created (Palin), if her Saturday Night Live appearance sealed the caricature beyond repair, what McCain's options concerning her are now, and what they can do to win Pennsylvania. This is all interpretive journalism, without any of the reporting that Fineman did.

The next segment is more interpretation and horse race, with statistical guru Nate Silver joining the show to talk about McCain's prospects. Olbermann reports that "McCain campaign insiders" say that they essentially cannot win in Colorado, Iowa, or New Mexico -- their hopes are "gone," he reports. Without those states, Olbermann says that McCain would have to win every other state that George Bush won in 2004, as well as at least one state that went for John Kerry. Olbermann asks Silver whether McCain is really within striking distance in battleground states (as on-the-record McCain spokespeople claim), what other scenarios can work if McCain loses in Pennsylvania (and how realistic they are), what states Obama can afford to lose while still winning the election, and whether it would be prudent for Obama to gamble advertising money on long-shot states like Montana and North Dakota (since he has so much money).

Next Olbermann reports on the reason why McCain's ACORN allegations have stopped: it's been discovered that his campaign has funded two people, Mark Jacoby and Nathan Sproul, who have used their voter registration outfits to commit "slamming" in the favor of the Republican Party -- essentially, they registered people as Republicans without their knowledge, and destroyed the registration forms of Democrats who were led to believe that they were legally registered. This segment is all reporting, and though it's negative toward the Republicans, it is not biased because of the descriptive tone of the reporting. It's not slanted, it's just factual information.

The "Worst Persons" today include Dana Perino, Sean Hannity, and Rupert Murdoch. Perino claimed that there's no recession in the United States, Hannity brought up Obama's supposed cocaine habit (and whether he's sold cocaine before) while claiming he wasn't bringing it up, and Murdoch's New York Post blamed a false story about Michelle Obama splurging on room service on a bad source. They're all Republicans, and while Olbermann does pretty good impressions of all three, that just adds to the political bias -- as does calling Hannity a "manatee."

The final segment is a "Campaign Comment" on Sarah Palin's apparent inability to understand what exactly the vice president's job is. Olbermann says that it's explicit in the Constitution, easy to memorize and understand, and that she should "at least wait until taking office to try to seize power extra-constitutionally." The comment clearly comes with a political agenda, but since it's an editorial statement, as usual, Olbermann is left with some wiggle room in terms of political bias.