Presidential Campaigns: The Childish Side

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


If you are interested in how presidential candidates use silly maneuvers to upstage one another on the campaign trail, check out this blog post from the New York Times‘ very good new political blog, The Caucus.

The focus of the post is how John McCain is trying to distract the Michigan press (and voters) from Mitt Romney’s formal candidacy announcement, which is due today in Dearborn. Admittedly, writing about stuff like this is the worst kind of horserace journalism — covering the process of politics, instead of the substance, and focusing on who plays the game better, instead of who would govern well — so consider it a disclaimer when I say that posts like this one and the one over at The Caucus are for political junkies who enjoy political minutia as the lemon twist on their serious journalism martini.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate