Media
By Eric Ostermeier on December 3, 2009
Governor is adamant that, despite rumored political aspirations or busy travel schedule, there is "no work in his office or administration that is left undone"
By Eric Ostermeier on November 22, 2009
Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs' CSPG launches a new site on political news reporting by University of Minnesota students
By Eric Ostermeier on September 10, 2009
Gallagher called Representative Wilson a "hero" in standing up to the President and vowed he could raise $100,000 in 30 minutes from his listeners
By Eric Ostermeier on August 27, 2009
Last month Smart Politics conducted a case study as to how one Minnesota lawmaker, Republican Representative Laura Brod, utilized the social networking site Twitter during the last legislative session. That study found the plurality of Rep. Brod's tweets were about substantive policy issues, with approximately one-sixth about her own personal...
By Eric Ostermeier on August 20, 2009
With her A-block interview on health care reform on Fox News' Hannity program Tuesday evening, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has now equaled in 7+ months in 2009 the number of national cable television news appearances she made in all of 2008. A Smart Politics analysis of media transcripts dating back...
By Eric Ostermeier on August 12, 2009
With Monday's news conference in Guadalajara, Mexico with Mexican President Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, President Barack Obama continues to build on his record number of press conferences held outside of the United States. Through his first 6 months and 20 days in office,...
By Eric Ostermeier on July 15, 2009
Minnesota politicians (and the news media) increasingly used Twitter to communicate to their respective audiences during the 2009 legislative session in St. Paul. Some news outlets, such as Politics in Minnesota, tweeted thousands of policy updates and commentaries on the burgeoning social network, while politicians used it, at times, as...
By Eric Ostermeier on June 23, 2009
Now seven and a half months out from Election Day, the U.S. Senate contest between DFLer Al Franken and Republican Norm Coleman is still providing a few yucks on late-night television. In recent weeks, Bill Maher has been a virtual Norm Coleman joke factory on his Real Time with Bill...
By Eric Ostermeier on March 25, 2009
President Barack Obama has been bluntly criticized by some pundits and politicians for taking time out of his White House schedule to fill out his NCAA Men's Basketball tournament picks on ESPN last week. While some Americans enjoyed Obama's 'man-of-the-people' demonstration, others, such as Republican Senators Lamar Alexander and Jon...
By Eric Ostermeier on March 22, 2009
During a Saturday afternoon interview on WWTC 1280 AM with The Northern Alliance's John Hinderaker and Brian Ward, Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann discussed her staunch opposition to several Democratic-led efforts on Capitol Hill this session - such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the recently passed HR 1586...
By Eric Ostermeier on March 10, 2009
Nationally syndicated conservative radio talk show host Mike Gallagher lamented this morning that his failure to sell his own house, that he recently placed on the market, was due to the psychological effects burdening the wealthy resulting from the class warfare propagated by President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats. Gallagher...
By Eric Ostermeier on February 26, 2009
The Rothenberg Political Report came out with its first U.S. House rankings for the 2010 election cycle on Wednesday, and both of Minnesota's competitive Republican-held Congressional districts made the list. Erik Paulsen's 3rd CD and Michele Bachmann's 6th CD are listed as "Republican favored" - two of ten GOP seats...
By Eric Ostermeier on November 10, 2008
As the headline of Barack Obama’s historic victory begins to fade and political reporters and analysts need to turn their attention elsewhere, it is likely the recount in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race will satisfy their cravings and subsequently garner even more national attention. To date, due to its understandably Obama-centric...
By Eric Ostermeier on October 23, 2008
Michele Bachmann, a cable television fixture this year with multiple appearances on Larry King Live, is hitting TV and radio programs hard to get her side of the Chris Matthews controversy across the airwaves, during which she questioned whether Barack Obama and other members of Congress were “anti-American.� But...
By Eric Ostermeier on September 3, 2008
On July 31st Smart Politics outlined several reasons why Barack Obama should not follow in the footsteps of 2000 Democratic Presidential nominee Al Gore, who declined to grant an interview to Bill O’Reilly on his top-rated cable television news program, The O’Reilly Factor. I argued that, in addition to Senator...
By Eric Ostermeier on September 2, 2008
11:40 a.m. The third forum this morning at the Humphrey Institute's America's Future: Conversations about Politics and Policy during the 2008 Republican National Convention is "Truth Telling in the Media and the Fall Elections." The panel is moderated by Kathleen Hall Jamieson (Professor of Communication and Director, Annenberg Public Policy...
By Eric Ostermeier on July 31, 2008
As popular television commentator and host Bill O’Reilly has pointed out on a near daily basis, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has yet to appear on his program, despite numerous on-air (and presumably private) invitations. Should Obama make the pilgrimage to ‘The Factor?’ O’Reilly has led in the cable television...
By Eric Ostermeier on March 27, 2008
On multiple occasions during his weeknight telecast The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly has made a particular effort to tell the viewers, and his right-wing guests, that he is not endorsing a presidential candidate and has no horse in the race. O'Reilly has maintained for years that he is only...
By Eric Ostermeier on January 9, 2008
The media had to throw out their script Tuesday night as the Democratic election returns came in during the New Hampshire primary. The print media who wrote Hillary Clinton's obituary that morning and the broadcast media who spent the hours preceding the election results asking, "What happened to Hillary?" have...
By Eric Ostermeier on January 4, 2008
With five Republican candidates polling at 10 or more percent in the Iowa caucuses (Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, John McCain, and Ron Paul), as well as in national polls (substituting Rudy Giuliani for Ron Paul), the GOP race certainly appears to be the horserace to end all horseraces....
