Eric Boehlert digs up some data I was wondering about:
But back to the loser angle real quick. Again, after Sunday, McCain will have made eleven Sunday morning talk show appearances this year. Asks Benen, “Refresh my memory: was there this much interest in John Kerry’s take on current events in 2005?
Answer: There was not. In 2005, between Meet the Press, Face the Nation, This week, Fox News Sunday and CNN’s Late Edition (which has basically morphed into today’s State of the Union), John Kerry made a total of three appearances on those program during the first eight months of 2005, according to a search of Nexis.
Again, I’m not complaining politically. As a Democrat, I certainly wouldn’t have wanted Kerry on the tube in 2005.
I remember reading a while ago — I won’t be able to find the link because I don’t remember the quote well enough — a Republican saying something like “When we lose an election, we take the people who ran the campaign out back and shoot them. When Democrats lose an election, they hire the same people to run the next campaign.” I realize that candidates/elected officials are not the same thing as campaign managers, but I’ve got to think that recycling losing front men isn’t that much smarter than recycling losing political operatives. When someone loses a general presidential election, stick him on an ice floe and push him out to sea. If he wins a Nobel prize like Al Gore did, then he can come back.
The overall dynamic here is very strange, though. John Edwards cheats on his cancer-stricken wife and becomes a pariah. Newt Gingrich serves his wife with divorce papers as she’s coming out of surgery and the Joe Kleins of the world still slobber all over him. Dukakis and Kerry lose, they go into hiding. Bob Dole becomes a popular pornographic Pepsi pitchman and John McCain starts co-hosting the Sunday shows.
Update. Not exactly the same thing, but Jenna Bush just got a gig with the “Today” show.