The Unmentioned

It is women like Linda Sinclair who have turned New England into a potentially tough playing field for Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).

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Before he went in for the rally, Obama gave a four-minute version of his stump speech to the crowd out front. Afterward, he spent a few moments shaking hands, including Barnhart's and Locke's.

The two women had attended the Clinton rally in Orono but had come away unimpressed. "We think she kind of had canned things to say," Barnhart said.

Locke nodded in agreement. "I guess I am one of her targets. But he's the only one I see as a change to what we've got now." (Murray and Bacon Jr., Washington Post)

In their report on the Democratic caucuses in Maine, Murray and Bacon Jr. spend almost three quarters of the article focusing on Clinton, inserting little bits and pieces about Obama here and there. They mention Maine's demographic and its voting habits, go on to cite Super Tuesday results in other states, and throw in a handful of quotes from the candidates and their campaign teams.

The lack of balance between their coverage of the two different sides of the story here leaves their report feeling biased. Of course, the end of the article quotes two women hinting that they're more likely to vote for Obama, which contradicts the argument made by the article's headline and perhaps puts the facts into a clearer perspective, but it left me feeling confused about their choice to let Clinton coverage dominate their article.

Why spend so much time pointing out Clinton's connection to female voters, and then, at the very end of the report, briefly mention two women--voters from one of her primary target audiences--who don't support her in an offhand fashion, like it's not surprising? A more objective approach to the story here would have been more appropriate, one that explored this surprising fact further to find out if more women were also leaning in Obama's direction.

Both Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama campaigned in Maine today in advance of the state’s Democratic caucuses on Sunday.

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Analysts say that Mrs. Clinton could run well against Mr. Obama here because many of Maine’s voters fit the demographic profile of voters she has won elsewhere: older, blue-collar and heavily female, in a state that is economically stressed. It has a large population of people without college degrees and who make less than $50,000 a year. Almost all voters here are white.

“The demographics don’t favor Obama,” said Amy Fried, also a political scientist at the University of Maine. “But there are other factors at work, like a populist, independent streak, that could work for Obama.”

Mr. Obama is expected to do well with the state’s more affluent voters in the southern part of the state and its many college students. In addition, he has won most of the states that have held caucuses, which require a strong organization and a more devoted following.

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The caucuses take place on Sunday, with sites open at varying intervals throughout the day. The last closes at 8 P.M.

Officials are expecting a high turnout here, just as in other states. In 2004, 17,000 Democrats turned out. About 4,000 absentee ballots had been cast by Wednesday’s deadline.(Seelye, The New York Times)

Seelye, in her report, provides much more objective coverage of the struggle between Clinton and Obama in Maine. Rather than spending too much time on one candidate or the other, she opens with a side-by-side comparison, moves to a closer look at each candidate in detail, and then finishes up with a few general facts that focus on the election itself rather than the candidates.

I particularly like the fact that Seelye did some research to find out more about a letter Clinton wrote to NBC News complaining about the way one of their reporters referred to her daughter's involvement in the election campaign. This close look at Clinton's relationship with her daughter helped the article demonstrate her power as a mother figure (and a female candidate) without citing polls and statistics.

Seelye even found time to mention McCain in her article, and briefly speculate about which Democratic candidate was better suited to oppose him.

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