Interesting that Romney’s numbers overtaking Obama’s is not the headline, even though it’s the far more important aspect of the numeric change. Obama’s numbers could similarly fall with blacks, from 94% to 88%, but that would not change his control in that demographic. Here, the lead has been taken... but only Obama’s decline seems to matter to the headline writer.
94 to 88 percent might leave him “in control of the demographic” but it would lose him the election.
“Here, the lead has been taken... but only Obama’s decline seems to matter to the headline writer.”
I agree, but I’m not sure it’s a bad thing. I don’t think most people are voting for Romney because they really, really WANT him to be President. They’re voting for Romney to rid themselves of Obama. And it’s obvious from the shifting polls people are starting to think about who they are going to vote for and that many may now even be interested in hearing open, pro and con discussions from their friends, family, and co-workers.
Therefore I think that headlines to the effect that Obama is a sinking ship would have more influence on wavering voters than headlines that say Romney is picking up steam. In other words, people are seeing that other people like themselves have made the decision to bail on Obama, so it puts them in the mainstream if they do the same. I think the biased headline writers are doing Obama no favors.
It's the Tampa Bay Times (formerly the St. Petersburg Times), a newspaper so unapologetically liberal that it even mentions this about its founder on its Times History page:
Over the four decades Nelson Poynter (shown below) ran the Times, Poynter transformed his father’s small, financially wobbly paper into a large, robust enterprise. He became one of American journalism’s most conspicuous figures – a liberal in a conservative community, an innovator in a sometimes stand-pat industry, a loner in a field increasingly dominated by chains.