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With last night's victories for Clinton and Trump, the real question people should be asking themselves is what these two candidates have in common that have ke

With last night's victories for Clinton and Trump, the real question people should be asking themselves is what these two candidates have in common that have kept them winning, despite their having the two worst favorability ratings in the election? To me, media is an obvious one. Turner Broadcasting is a major corporate donor to Clinton, and the NYT is all but falling over themselves to build connections with a Clinton administration. Another similarity is neither Clinton or Trump care that much about consistency, which makes them much shinier objects to cover. See this article for a rare example of the NYT even being unable to notice Hillary's flip flopping: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/opinion/campaign-stops/which-side-are-you-on-hillary.html http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/03/13/opinion/campaign-stops/...

libertymcateer 11y ago
> With last night's victories for Clinton and Trump, the real question people should be asking themselves is what these two candidates have in common that have kept them winning, despite their having the two worst favorability ratings in the election? Specious assumption. My conclusion is that the favorability ratings are bullshit. To posit that a huge media conspiracy has caused millions of voters to vote huge, huge landslides in favor of these two people is just ridiculous compared with the probability that measuring very complex and ineffable metrics like "favorability" is a total crapshoot, especially in a world where voters like myself (and many HNers, I suspect) do not have landlines, use ad-blockers, do not click on advertising online and do not fill out surveys. Tl;dr the likelihood of media influence controlling this election to such huge, huge landslide outcomes is overwhelmingly improbable compared to the high likelihood that favorability metrics are junk-science.
- sb8244 11y ago
  is there any data to back up most voters not being exposed to the media agenda? It seems a bit like "not I not anyone" when i might speculate "not I but everyone"
- hobs 11y ago
  > Tl;dr the likelihood of media influence controlling this election to such huge, huge landslide outcomes is overwhelmingly improbable compared to the high likelihood that favorability metrics are junk-science. Political polling and surveys have a margin of error, and its generally pretty close to the mark. Trump and Hillary have had by far and away the most advertising for their campaigns, and generally the ones with the biggest ad spends (which has in the past converted into the most advertising, but Trump has gotten enormous free advertising) win elections. My conclusion is that there is no media conspiracy, they just like getting paid and both Trump and Hillary make that happen.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    Jeb spent by far the most on advertising. Trump spends among the least. Equating the media's coverage of Trump with "advertising" is a specious attempt to save the "money buys elections" narrative that is being utterly discredited by these primaries.
    - hobs 11y ago
      I probably need to go get some numbers, but when one person's name is repeated over and over and over and their statements are repeated over and over, even if that has a negative connotation, it clearly puts that person in the spotlight. If Trump had the same advertising as he could afford I dont think he would have been in the same position he is in now.
- DSingularity 11y ago
  > Tl;dr the likelihood of media influence controlling this election to such huge, huge landslide outcomes is overwhelmingly improbable compared to the high likelihood that favorability metrics are junk-science. Overwhelmingly improbable? Oh man! What is that likelihood? Please dont masquerade your opinions as facts by using terms like "likelihood" and "improbable". I have one question for you. If media influence over elections is so "unlikely" and so insignificant why would the NYT have tripped over itself to retitle and reword their article to make it seem like pro-Bernie? Media influence is real. You will quickly notice after speaking to people outside your bubble that the average voters political almost always conform to that of the "pundits".
  - libertymcateer 11y ago
    The subscription and readership numbers just don't back this. People simply don't read newspapers. The NYT could say that Hillary is the second coming and the average voter wouldn't be aware of it.
    - id 11y ago
      They have to get their information from somewhere. TV channels are media, too. Most people don't know Bernie, Hillary and Donald personally, so the only way to get an impression is the media.
      - settsu 11y ago
        No, not the only way. Just the lazy way.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - gipp 11y ago
      Network effects are a hell of a thing.
    - veidr 11y ago
      You don't have to read the newspaper for it to influence your your life, or even your own opinions. The institution has enormous power. Your example, the NYT, is quoted on TV and radio every single day, in and out of the US. Add to that the number of private who quote, forward, regurgitate-as-if-they-thought-of-it the articles. The power of the mainstream media is waning, but it is still more significant than anything else, other parts of the Internet included, in swaying voters.
- gerty 11y ago
  > My conclusion is that the favorability ratings are bullshit. Primary election results do not support this theory. Clinton has very high favorability among self-declared Democrats, something like 70-80 % off the top of my head. Her favorability declines fast with Independents and Republican voters. I don't have the data in front of me but I could bet Sanders won independent vote in every primary where independents were allowed to vote, notably Michigan. Noone can't say if it's favorability only but correlation is hard to dispute.
  - huac 11y ago
    Moderate favorability: Sanders 58-38, Clinton 49-45 (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cdh297lWEAAihp-.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cdh297lWEAAihp-.jpg:large) Independent favorability: Sanders 50-39, Clinton 31-60 (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cdh1L0vXEAEokgY.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cdh1L0vXEAEokgY.jpg:large) Worth noting that among independents, Clinton has a net -29 which is second worst only to Trump at -32, and is worse than Cruz at -27.
- roderickm 11y ago
  Bias need not be coordinated or conspiratorial to exist in media. Trump and Clinton each have more than twice the earned (free) media coverage than their nearest competitors. The amount each campaign spends on bought media is a small fraction of what is bestowed by news editors and producers. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/03/15/ny-times-trumps-mammoth-advantage-in-free-media/209262 http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/03/15/ny-times-trumps-mamm...
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - rayiner 11y ago
    The whole "earned media coverage" thing is so mind boggling I don't even know what to say. The media covers candidates people are interested in, and somehow that's equivalent to paid advertising? Maybe, just maybe, peoples' opinions drive what the media covers (like every other market in existence), instead of the other way around? Beyond that, the media coverage of Clinton and Trump are overwhelmingly negative. All I see on TV is "how to stop Trump" and "is Hillary a lying liar who lies?"
- eli 11y ago
  I'm not sure favorability is junk science so much as it is not a good predictor of who will win delegates through a series of byzantine and varied state processes. And at the risk of stating the obvious, finding someone as more favorable than their opponent doesn't necessarily imply I will vote for them in an election.
cbgb 11y ago
This argument, to me, seems like a lot of inside baseball. I think people attuned to the political conversation vastly overestimate how much political coverage the average voter consumes. Occam's Razor might suggest people are voting for Clinton and Trump due to name recognition and previous primary results.
- jonnathanson 11y ago
  Actually, ironically enough, the average person's lack of political involvement is precisely why political media coverage works so well for Trump and Clinton. If most people are generally unaware of what's going on, then there's a massive premium attributable to awareness alone. People are more aware of Trump than they are of, say, John Kasich. (I'm willing to bet the latter's unaided awareness among the general population is quite low, and lower still among that sample of GenPop who doesn't read or watch election-cycle news). This observation is at the heart of Trump's calculus. Awareness, awareness, awareness. How do you get awareness? Through reach and frequency of your exposure to the public. How do you get reach and frequency? Media. How do you get free media? Say crazy shit. Be outrageous. Be different. Awareness, awareness, awareness. It is nine tenths of the battle, especially in the primaries. Things like favorability only matter once you've cleared the awareness hurdle. And that hurdle is quite high; it's often a lot higher than campaign managers or media pundits expect. In fact, the more disengaged people are from election coverage, the less aware they are of who the candidates are, and the more important it is to get in front of them through any means possible. Someone like Clinton or Trump has had, what, 9 billion chances to get in front of the average person at this point. Another key to Trump's success has been hijacking the non-election news cycle. You only hear about John Kasich if you're watching or reading political news, and since many people are not, that sucks for John Kasich. But you hear about Donald Trump pretty much anytime and anywhere; he is inescapably in all aspects of the news across all outlets.
  - frogpelt 11y ago
    > "People are more aware of Trump than they are of, say, John Kasich." This is as anecdotal as it gets, but to your point. In a recent political discussion one of my co-workers had no idea how to pronounce Kasich's name. If he was all over the news, this would not be a problem. > "Be outrageous. Be different." Or be a Clinton.
rayiner 11y ago
Or, it's because people like their platforms. Hilary skews right within the democratic party, and Trump skews left on a lot of key issues. Trump isn't out there calling to get rid of the IRS, and Clinton isn't out there saying she will make college free.
- mtgx 11y ago
  If you look at how people voted for Clinton, I think it has a lot more to do with how those people got their information than deciding based on policy. People who get their information from the Internet tended to support Sanders. Those who got it from TV (usually 60 year olds, which is the networks' main audience), tended to support Clinton. Also there was a huge awareness gap between Clinton and Sanders when their campaigns started. Sanders has had to catch-up this whole time. He was only given 10 minutes on TV the first 9 months of his campaign. Trump got 23 times as much.
  - randomgyatwork 11y ago
    It may not have anything to do with where the people get the information. Sanders is the candidate young people can get behind, Clinton is more of what typical voters (older people) are looking for. More simply, just look at the average age of a voter, they are not young people.
  - untog 11y ago
    > People who get their information from the Internet tended to support Sanders. Those who got it from TV (usually 60 year olds, which is the networks' main audience), tended to support Clinton. No. What you're saying there is that older people vote Clinton, younger people vote Sanders. There isn't any evidence to tie that to people's media habits, and "younger people vote for more liberal candidates than older people" has been true since time immemorial.
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      'immemorial'
pistle 11y ago
This wreaks of elitism. Media is not consumed, nor as influential, as you are suggesting. Never denigrate the intelligence or incentives of others. To dismiss others' intelligence, experience, and/or process for developing their preferences, you miss out on understanding their motivations and needs. You may miss out on opportunities to develop friends, family, ... or customers. Despite not having a deep warm-fuzzy for Trump or Hillary (thus increasing their favorability ratings), they represent something to their acolytes. It makes sense and defies scapegoats like "they are media sheeple!"
- beeboop 11y ago
  I think most people with your opinion would change their mind if they listened to honest answers as to why people voted for who they did. Most people don't have a reason other than gut instinct, or perhaps one or two big social issues like abortion or (previously) gay marriage. No amount factual evidence to show these people that they're actually voting against their interests would change their mind. One of the most common ones I've encountered is asking someone why they feel they can trust a particular candidate, when here's a giant list of things implicating them in corruption, lies, and indisputably voting opposite of how they campaigned. The response is always "All politicians are corrupt, it's just part of the system". Or "anyone running for President isn't the type of person who should actually be a President". Anything counter to these people's gut beliefs is dismissed as "everyone has that same problem", ignoring the extent to which their choice has it.
Fastidious 11y ago
You are assuming the vast majority sees CNN, etc. and/or reads the NYT. That, I think, is too bold. I don't think there is anything in common between the two, from personalities, party affiliation, to how they conduct themselves in public.
- toyg 11y ago
  I'd say they have a common hatred for Ed Snowden and common positions on FBI-mandated iPhone unlocking, to start with. And the fact that they lived in the same circles for the last 20 years suggests they likely share much more than that. Hillary was also born with money (albeit less than Trump) and was a Goldwater Republican before the antiwar tide became too big to fight. (Party affiliation of political personalities in the US is a joke. See also: Joe Lieberman, another guy living in the same NY circles as Trump and Clinton. Don't take labels seriously, look at the policy, and you'll see the differences between Clinton and Trump are mostly cosmetic.)
eli 11y ago
I don't see any reason to assume there's some common factor that all election winners share. The only thing they have in common is that they're better at putting together a winning coalition of voters than their respective opponents.

libertymcateer 11y ago

> With last night's victories for Clinton and Trump, the real question people should be asking themselves is what these two candidates have in common that have kept them winning, despite their having the two worst favorability ratings in the election? Specious assumption. My conclusion is that the favorability ratings are bullshit. To posit that a huge media conspiracy has caused millions of voters to vote huge, huge landslides in favor of these two people is just ridiculous compared with the probability that measuring very complex and ineffable metrics like "favorability" is a total crapshoot, especially in a world where voters like myself (and many HNers, I suspect) do not have landlines, use ad-blockers, do not click on advertising online and do not fill out surveys. Tl;dr the likelihood of media influence controlling this election to such huge, huge landslide outcomes is overwhelmingly improbable compared to the high likelihood that favorability metrics are junk-science.

sb8244 11y ago
is there any data to back up most voters not being exposed to the media agenda? It seems a bit like "not I not anyone" when i might speculate "not I but everyone"
hobs 11y ago
> Tl;dr the likelihood of media influence controlling this election to such huge, huge landslide outcomes is overwhelmingly improbable compared to the high likelihood that favorability metrics are junk-science. Political polling and surveys have a margin of error, and its generally pretty close to the mark. Trump and Hillary have had by far and away the most advertising for their campaigns, and generally the ones with the biggest ad spends (which has in the past converted into the most advertising, but Trump has gotten enormous free advertising) win elections. My conclusion is that there is no media conspiracy, they just like getting paid and both Trump and Hillary make that happen.
- rayiner 11y ago
  Jeb spent by far the most on advertising. Trump spends among the least. Equating the media's coverage of Trump with "advertising" is a specious attempt to save the "money buys elections" narrative that is being utterly discredited by these primaries.
  - hobs 11y ago
    I probably need to go get some numbers, but when one person's name is repeated over and over and over and their statements are repeated over and over, even if that has a negative connotation, it clearly puts that person in the spotlight. If Trump had the same advertising as he could afford I dont think he would have been in the same position he is in now.
DSingularity 11y ago
> Tl;dr the likelihood of media influence controlling this election to such huge, huge landslide outcomes is overwhelmingly improbable compared to the high likelihood that favorability metrics are junk-science. Overwhelmingly improbable? Oh man! What is that likelihood? Please dont masquerade your opinions as facts by using terms like "likelihood" and "improbable". I have one question for you. If media influence over elections is so "unlikely" and so insignificant why would the NYT have tripped over itself to retitle and reword their article to make it seem like pro-Bernie? Media influence is real. You will quickly notice after speaking to people outside your bubble that the average voters political almost always conform to that of the "pundits".
- libertymcateer 11y ago
  The subscription and readership numbers just don't back this. People simply don't read newspapers. The NYT could say that Hillary is the second coming and the average voter wouldn't be aware of it.
  - id 11y ago
    They have to get their information from somewhere. TV channels are media, too. Most people don't know Bernie, Hillary and Donald personally, so the only way to get an impression is the media.
    - settsu 11y ago
      No, not the only way. Just the lazy way.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - gipp 11y ago
    Network effects are a hell of a thing.
  - veidr 11y ago
    You don't have to read the newspaper for it to influence your your life, or even your own opinions. The institution has enormous power. Your example, the NYT, is quoted on TV and radio every single day, in and out of the US. Add to that the number of private who quote, forward, regurgitate-as-if-they-thought-of-it the articles. The power of the mainstream media is waning, but it is still more significant than anything else, other parts of the Internet included, in swaying voters.
gerty 11y ago
> My conclusion is that the favorability ratings are bullshit. Primary election results do not support this theory. Clinton has very high favorability among self-declared Democrats, something like 70-80 % off the top of my head. Her favorability declines fast with Independents and Republican voters. I don't have the data in front of me but I could bet Sanders won independent vote in every primary where independents were allowed to vote, notably Michigan. Noone can't say if it's favorability only but correlation is hard to dispute.
- huac 11y ago
  Moderate favorability: Sanders 58-38, Clinton 49-45 (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cdh297lWEAAihp-.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cdh297lWEAAihp-.jpg:large) Independent favorability: Sanders 50-39, Clinton 31-60 (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cdh1L0vXEAEokgY.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cdh1L0vXEAEokgY.jpg:large) Worth noting that among independents, Clinton has a net -29 which is second worst only to Trump at -32, and is worse than Cruz at -27.
roderickm 11y ago
Bias need not be coordinated or conspiratorial to exist in media. Trump and Clinton each have more than twice the earned (free) media coverage than their nearest competitors. The amount each campaign spends on bought media is a small fraction of what is bestowed by news editors and producers. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/03/15/ny-times-trumps-mammoth-advantage-in-free-media/209262 http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/03/15/ny-times-trumps-mamm...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- rayiner 11y ago
  The whole "earned media coverage" thing is so mind boggling I don't even know what to say. The media covers candidates people are interested in, and somehow that's equivalent to paid advertising? Maybe, just maybe, peoples' opinions drive what the media covers (like every other market in existence), instead of the other way around? Beyond that, the media coverage of Clinton and Trump are overwhelmingly negative. All I see on TV is "how to stop Trump" and "is Hillary a lying liar who lies?"
eli 11y ago
I'm not sure favorability is junk science so much as it is not a good predictor of who will win delegates through a series of byzantine and varied state processes. And at the risk of stating the obvious, finding someone as more favorable than their opponent doesn't necessarily imply I will vote for them in an election.

cbgb 11y ago

This argument, to me, seems like a lot of inside baseball. I think people attuned to the political conversation vastly overestimate how much political coverage the average voter consumes. Occam's Razor might suggest people are voting for Clinton and Trump due to name recognition and previous primary results.

jonnathanson 11y ago
Actually, ironically enough, the average person's lack of political involvement is precisely why political media coverage works so well for Trump and Clinton. If most people are generally unaware of what's going on, then there's a massive premium attributable to awareness alone. People are more aware of Trump than they are of, say, John Kasich. (I'm willing to bet the latter's unaided awareness among the general population is quite low, and lower still among that sample of GenPop who doesn't read or watch election-cycle news). This observation is at the heart of Trump's calculus. Awareness, awareness, awareness. How do you get awareness? Through reach and frequency of your exposure to the public. How do you get reach and frequency? Media. How do you get free media? Say crazy shit. Be outrageous. Be different. Awareness, awareness, awareness. It is nine tenths of the battle, especially in the primaries. Things like favorability only matter once you've cleared the awareness hurdle. And that hurdle is quite high; it's often a lot higher than campaign managers or media pundits expect. In fact, the more disengaged people are from election coverage, the less aware they are of who the candidates are, and the more important it is to get in front of them through any means possible. Someone like Clinton or Trump has had, what, 9 billion chances to get in front of the average person at this point. Another key to Trump's success has been hijacking the non-election news cycle. You only hear about John Kasich if you're watching or reading political news, and since many people are not, that sucks for John Kasich. But you hear about Donald Trump pretty much anytime and anywhere; he is inescapably in all aspects of the news across all outlets.
- frogpelt 11y ago
  > "People are more aware of Trump than they are of, say, John Kasich." This is as anecdotal as it gets, but to your point. In a recent political discussion one of my co-workers had no idea how to pronounce Kasich's name. If he was all over the news, this would not be a problem. > "Be outrageous. Be different." Or be a Clinton.

rayiner 11y ago

Or, it's because people like their platforms. Hilary skews right within the democratic party, and Trump skews left on a lot of key issues. Trump isn't out there calling to get rid of the IRS, and Clinton isn't out there saying she will make college free.

mtgx 11y ago
If you look at how people voted for Clinton, I think it has a lot more to do with how those people got their information than deciding based on policy. People who get their information from the Internet tended to support Sanders. Those who got it from TV (usually 60 year olds, which is the networks' main audience), tended to support Clinton. Also there was a huge awareness gap between Clinton and Sanders when their campaigns started. Sanders has had to catch-up this whole time. He was only given 10 minutes on TV the first 9 months of his campaign. Trump got 23 times as much.
- randomgyatwork 11y ago
  It may not have anything to do with where the people get the information. Sanders is the candidate young people can get behind, Clinton is more of what typical voters (older people) are looking for. More simply, just look at the average age of a voter, they are not young people.
- untog 11y ago
  > People who get their information from the Internet tended to support Sanders. Those who got it from TV (usually 60 year olds, which is the networks' main audience), tended to support Clinton. No. What you're saying there is that older people vote Clinton, younger people vote Sanders. There isn't any evidence to tie that to people's media habits, and "younger people vote for more liberal candidates than older people" has been true since time immemorial.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    'immemorial'

pistle 11y ago

This wreaks of elitism. Media is not consumed, nor as influential, as you are suggesting. Never denigrate the intelligence or incentives of others. To dismiss others' intelligence, experience, and/or process for developing their preferences, you miss out on understanding their motivations and needs. You may miss out on opportunities to develop friends, family, ... or customers. Despite not having a deep warm-fuzzy for Trump or Hillary (thus increasing their favorability ratings), they represent something to their acolytes. It makes sense and defies scapegoats like "they are media sheeple!"

beeboop 11y ago
I think most people with your opinion would change their mind if they listened to honest answers as to why people voted for who they did. Most people don't have a reason other than gut instinct, or perhaps one or two big social issues like abortion or (previously) gay marriage. No amount factual evidence to show these people that they're actually voting against their interests would change their mind. One of the most common ones I've encountered is asking someone why they feel they can trust a particular candidate, when here's a giant list of things implicating them in corruption, lies, and indisputably voting opposite of how they campaigned. The response is always "All politicians are corrupt, it's just part of the system". Or "anyone running for President isn't the type of person who should actually be a President". Anything counter to these people's gut beliefs is dismissed as "everyone has that same problem", ignoring the extent to which their choice has it.

Fastidious 11y ago

You are assuming the vast majority sees CNN, etc. and/or reads the NYT. That, I think, is too bold. I don't think there is anything in common between the two, from personalities, party affiliation, to how they conduct themselves in public.

toyg 11y ago
I'd say they have a common hatred for Ed Snowden and common positions on FBI-mandated iPhone unlocking, to start with. And the fact that they lived in the same circles for the last 20 years suggests they likely share much more than that. Hillary was also born with money (albeit less than Trump) and was a Goldwater Republican before the antiwar tide became too big to fight. (Party affiliation of political personalities in the US is a joke. See also: Joe Lieberman, another guy living in the same NY circles as Trump and Clinton. Don't take labels seriously, look at the policy, and you'll see the differences between Clinton and Trump are mostly cosmetic.)

eli 11y ago

I don't see any reason to assume there's some common factor that all election winners share. The only thing they have in common is that they're better at putting together a winning coalition of voters than their respective opponents.