Don't Hate the Playa ...

... hate the game. Or at least, that's what Ezra's thinking today:

As of now, [Politico] just unveiled a new feature where, every day, they will rank whether Obama or McCain "won" the day. So yesterday, for instance, McCain "won" the day because "The USA Today/Gallup poll giving [McCain/Palin] a 4-point lead among registered voters framed the day’s top question: Does McCain now hold the advantage?" Read that again. McCain "won" yesterday's day of campaigning because a poll conducted last week showed him in the lead and that led reporters at places like Politico to write about his advantage which in turn led The Politico to render the objective judgment that McCain won the day because they framed their coverage in a way that was favorable to him.

So, for all intents and purposes, the media is now evaluating candidates on their ability to control the media's reaction to spin. I agree with Ezra that this is insane. It's not something that can be totally ignored. So far, McCain does seem to be handling this day-to-day national messaging war more effectively, and Republicans in general are better at sniping battles. Not inconsequential in this ability is the "black-white" nature of a lot of conservative issues. It's hard to win a sniping war with nuance, which Obama is MUCH better at, but reactions like this and this make me hopeful that he'll snipe more than some of his D forebears.

Still, the bottom line here is that the candidate who wins more days won't necessarily WIN anything.

-Education Dude