Palin, Trumped: The Donald gets 40% of media coverage

Donald Trump (Photo: Gage Skidmore)
and Sarah Palin (Photo: David Shankbone)
 

Nothwithstanding psychobabble from David Brooks (who thinks Donald Trump is the expression of a "deep public fantasy" for a charismatic blowhard), the only place Donald Trump is really soaring to extraordinary heights is in the media, where according to a new analysis by Nate Silver, Trump has overtaken Sarah Palin as the flavor du jour in the media establishment (my emphasis):

The search includes all sources on NewsLibrary.com ? a combination of about 4,000 newspapers, blogs and television and radio stations ? other than press releases, which I?ve excluded. I?ve tracked citations for the 23 Republican candidates who have been mentioned in at least one poll since the midterm elections in November.

During the month of November 2010, Ms. Palin?s name retrieved 777 hits, according to this technique. That represented just over half of the 1,533 citations for all 23 candidates combined.

So far this month, however, Ms. Palin has accounted for just 124 hits out of 1,090 total, or roughly 11 percent. Instead, her place has been taken by Mr. Trump, who has accounted for about 40 percent of the coverage.

Obviously, Palin is the big loser here, but given that she's probably not running for president, that's only interesting as a gossip item.

It would also be tempting to say the other big losers are all of the serious Republican candidates?the Tim Pawlentys, the Mitt Romneys, etc. After all, Trump is sucking all the oxygen out of the room, or more precisely, the media is hoarding all the oxygen for Trump.

But I'm not so sure this will ultimately be a bad thing for the GOP field. Sure, they are getting overshadowed by Trump's buffoonery. But when his star fades, they'll inherit a GOP base that is completely fired up with insane ideas about President Obama, but they won't be held accountable for those ideas. In fact, compared to Trump, they'll seem downright reasonable.

So for sure right now at this moment, Trump is blocking the sun. But the first primary votes don't get cast for nearly nine months, and election day is more than a year-and-a-half away. By the time Trump is forgotten, they won't regret his presence at all.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/ikpmllAbwbc/-Palin,-Trumped:-The-Donald-gets-40-of-media-coverage

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