No ‘Surprise’ in October as Obama Rolls Along

By Glenn Fannick
Dow Jones Insight Staff

The last full month of the 2008 presidential election is nearly over and we have not had the "October surprise" many political analysts have mentioned in hushed tones. Such a tail-wag-dog event, perhaps orchestrated by the White House, would be aimed at giving the Republican nominee a needed boost in the polls.

Instead, the more mundane has been playing out through October, at least as measured by mentions in the mainstream media and the blogosphere.

McCain had a strong September in the media, passing Obama for the first time during the general campaign. However, it was short-lived, with Obama re-emerging as the media darling early in October and expanding his lead every week since.

Meanwhile, Palin, who was greatly responsible for McCain’s rise in media coverage in early September, continues to do much better than Biden – topping him by more than 2 to 1 on most days – but her coverage has remained below that of McCain’s in the weeks following the vice presidential debate on October 2.

Methodology: The data come from approximately 20,000 English-language mainstream media print and Web sources, more than 60,000 English-language message boards and 2 million blogs.