STEREOTYPES UNFAVORABLE TO DEMOCRATS IN MEDIA TREATMENT OF RECENT ELECTIONS

Recent election results have been more favorable to the Democrats than the stereotypes invoked by pundits and the press have allowed. Who could reasonably have expected that an endorsement by President Obama would offset the discrepancy between the fading and inconsistent Arlen Specter and his vigorous rival Joe Sestak? The upshot in Pennsylvania is a strong progressive candidate that the Democratic side can rally around. If Blanche Lincoln is squeezed out in the Arkansas run-off, another strong progressive Democratic candidate will emerge. The media, fascinated by Rand Paul's victory in the Republican primary, have ignored the heavy turnout in Kentucky in the Democratic primary, but it suggests that in the general election Paul will face a winning opposition. So all these elections have had results so far favorable to the Democrats. That cannot be said of Scott Brown's election earlier, with "tea party" support, in Massachusetts, but there little has been made after the first shock of the lack of vigor of his Democratic opponent. Too much, moreover, has been made of the tea party support. Brown, once installed in the Senate, has been acting and voting, in line with Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, as a traditional New England Republican, perhaps another Saltonstall. Democrats should not write him off as unpersuadable.