For the Democrats, the big question tonight was how the press would play Hillary Clinton’s ‘win’ in Florida, or how successfully she could spin the result to count as a landslide victory on a par with Obama’s big win in South Carolina. The final number seems to be Hillary 50%, Obama 33%, Edwards 14% which, in numerical terms, is a trouncing, even it doesn’t match the spread in South Carolina.
Just judging from the cable news we watched this evening and how the major newspapers are playing it on their websites, it doesn’t look like they get much of a pop. Most of the website front pages of the newspapers I’m looking at either don’t mention the Democratic result out of Florida or put it under the fold with some conspicuous notation that the ‘win’ had not delegates. Nor, at least in the headlines I’m seeing, does there seem to be any real mention of the margin of her win, which was substantial. For the record I’m looking at the Boston Globe, New York Times, WaPo, USAToday, Dallas Morning News, LATimes, Stl. Post-Dispatch and others. The standard seems to be some form of the Post-Dispatch’s small related item “Clinton wins primary but no delegates.” In the Post, there’s a snarky piece by Dana Milbank: “Much Ado About No Delegates: The only piece missing from Sen. Hillary Clinton’s Florida victory party Tuesday night was a victory.” Ouch. CNN has a small related headline: “Clinton trumpets win with no delegates at stake.”
Just in terms of managing the news cycle I think what the Clinton folks would have been looking for are two things — big pictures of Hillary smiling, preferably above the fold, thus suggesting victory and some mention of her margin. But I don’t see either anywhere.
Perhaps the print front pages will play this differently. But on balance I suspect they didn’t get as much juice out of this as they wanted or expected.
