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President Obama's candor in a New York Times interview may have created some awkward moments for Democratic candidates. (Susan Walsh/AP)

Obama utters words 'tax and spend liberal.' Republicans drool.

By Dave Cook, Staff writer / 10.13.10

Around elections, presidential candor – even in limited amounts – can be politically awkward.

So at a meeting Wednesday morning with reporters, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was at pains to tamp down reaction to comments President Obama made for an interview with the New York Times Magazine that will be distributed this Sunday.

In the cover story, by reporter Peter Baker, Mr. Obama admits to learning “tactical lessons” in his first two years in office. He let himself look too much like “the same old tax and spend liberal Democrat,” the president said. When it comes to public works programs, the President said, “there’s no such thing as shovel ready projects.” And he raised the possibility he should not have included tax breaks as part of the stimulus bill and instead “let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts,” thus casting the aura of bipartisan compromise on the legislation. And the story said the president is spending time with key aides mapping a changed course for the next two years.

"There is no post mortem” underway, Mr. Gibbs told reporters. As to the magazine’s report that White House insiders think the administration has a communications problem, Gibbs quipped he was “sort of used to it.” In the magazine story, Gibbs is quoted as saying “I haven’t been to a policy-problem meeting in 20 months.”

Republicans were quick to jump on the president’s comments. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) sent out a press release titled “Obama Acknowledges Stimulus Failures – Does Bishop Agree?” The sub-head read "Twenty Days Until Election Day, Self-Proclaimed ‘Tax and Spend Democrat' Admits There is ‘No Such Thing as Shovel-Ready Projects.' "

The press release referred to a race pitting incumbent Democrat Tim Bishop, who represents the eastern end of Long Island, against Republican challenger Randy Altschuler. But the NRCC said it fired off a similar release to a long list of Congressional districts.

Democratic congressional candidates can ill afford any additional bad news. Non-partisan analyst Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report wrote Wednesday that it was “triage time for Democrats.” Pivotal swing voters have swung and “are now giving Republicans big leads,” he says. The analyst says “this year is shaping up to be something of a repeat of the 52-seat House and eight-seat Senate rout of Democrats of 1994.”

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This screen capture shows Project Vote Smart's VoteEasy website. (http://www.votesmart.org/voteeasy/)

Project Vote Smart unveils tool for the confused Election 2010 voter

By Gloria Goodale, Staff writer / 10.12.10

If this is the information age, why is it so hard to get basic answers about candidates running in Election 2010?

"Do you support United States military action in Afghanistan?"

"Do you support elimination of the federal estate tax?"

Fairly basic questions often left unanswered. But help is coming this week in the form of Project Vote Smart’s VoteEasy website.

The goal is to “keep it simple, dummy,” so the organizers have focused the site on congressional candidates' answers to the Vote Smart questionnaire, which asks basic questions, such as the ones above.

That allows the site to toss some interesting crumbs of information to the voter.

First, when you answer the same questionnaire put to the candidates themselves, the responses most like yours align themselves in real time with cool, little “yard sign” icons moving back and forth.

In other words, you can see which candidate thinks most like you in a glance. Then, presumably, being the conscientious citizen you are, once you narrow the field from say, 10 to two or three, you can click on through into the more sober research the site provides.

Project Vote Smart has been around since 1992 and has all kinds of bipartisan muscle behind it. Both former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and possible 2012 Republican presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich sit on the board of the privately funded nonprofit.

In search of a straight answer

Despite these credentials, the group is finding it harder every election season to get candidates to go on the record with their positions, says board member Adelaide Elm.

She notes that when the Project first launched its questionnaire in 1992, the response rate was more than 60 percent. Now, she says, the percentage of candidates answering has sunk to 41 percent. She attributes this growing reluctance to go on the record to the increasingly divisive political environment.

“We are seeing the consultants for both parties telling their candidates in no uncertain terms: Stick to your talking points, do not answer any questionnaires,” she says.

The biggest reason, she adds, is that information on the Internet is forever. “Challengers can use position statements against incumbents in attack ads and consultants don’t want information about a wide range of positions so freely available to insurgents,” she adds.

To solve the problem of this information gap, the site falls back on what Ms. Elm calls “inferred” positions, based on voting records and public statements. The site gives the candidates a certain amount of time to answer the questionnaire, after which they will prepare inferred responses that they present to the candidates for a 48-hour review period. Then, they are posted if the candidate does not provide a personal response.

"This could be an impactful tool," Chris Dolan, a political scientist at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pa.

Problems with inferring

But the “inferred” positions may be problematic, says Jack Holmes, a political scientist at Hope College in Holland, Mich. Regardless of the reasons for the lack of transparency from candidates, inferred positions send a mixed message to voters.

“My concern is that when I looked up our local race for Congress, the Republican candidate's answers are inferred or left blank. It looks like one major candidate responded to them and the other did not,” he says via e-mail.

The sheer number of inquiries candidates receive is part of the problem, he adds. “If this is to be of real value, it needs to get beyond the status of just one more inquiry to the status of something that needs to be answered. When things are inferred, it does not raise my confidence in the endeavor.”

It is easy for the project to blame the candidates, he says, “but I think that the project needs to gain enough confidence to receive answers rather than make inferences, especially concerning major party candidates.”

The VoteEasy project has been under construction for nearly a year, says Kim Rees, a project designer at the firm Periscopic. It's official debut is Thursday, but it is already operational. But she adds, it is one more voter aid.

"What we were trying to do is help people get past that feeling of helplessness when that thick voter pamphlet arrives in the mail,” she says, adding, “This is just one more tool.”

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CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric,shown here at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York on September 21, has launched a new segment on her evening news program called 'American Voices.' (Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

Katie Couric election series: A nod to Charles Kuralt or Facebook?

By Gloria Goodale, Staff writer / 10.08.10

Feel as if the real America is not being represented on national TV? Want your voice to be heard? CBS anchor Katie Couric thinks so.

On Thursday night, she launched a new segment on her evening news program, called “American Voices.” To christen the series, which will air regularly between now and Nov. 2, she jetted over to Cleveland – the perennial shorthand for America’s heartland – to talk with unemployed voters.

In the series, Couric is clearly harking back to her glory days as a folksy one-on-one interviewer on the “Today” show, bringing heart to the news and a face to everyday America. But, says Fordham University’s Paul Levinson, author of “New New Media,” it is also clear evidence of just how far the traditional broadcast media have fallen behind the pace of the social-media revolution.

The revolution is one “in which people’s voices are being heard in a myriad of corners, from Facebook to Twitter,” Professor Levinson says. “It is interesting to watch the traditional media trying to be contemporary with a world that is passing them by.”

In Thursday’s segment, Ms. Couric first played a clip of President Obama in a Cleveland stopover two days before the 2008 presidential vote, in which he said the time for change had come. Then, the CBS anchor settled in at Slyman’s Restaurant – whose reputation for corned beef and working-class customers also earned a visit from President Bush in 2007. Now, Couric chatted here with two men and two women about themselves, their vision of the country, and their feelings about the future.

“I don’t know if angry is the right word, but concerned,” said Tim Myers, an auto-parts manufacturer out of work for 16 months. As Couric nodded sympathetically, others chimed in. “I’m not so angry at the situation because these things happen,” said Paul Levin, a lawyer who has been out of work for more than two years. He added, “What I’m angry at, or upset about, is that there is not an ability for people to cooperate to address the problem.”

Couric took a break to add some context to the chat: The No. 1 problem in Ohio (as in other places) is the job market. Nearly 600,000 jobs have been lost since 2000, and more than half of those have evaporated in the past two years.

Still, all four of the Ohioans said their fundamental outlook for the country is optimistic, and they are not generally looking for the government to create work for them.

“I really would have them not try and create jobs,” said Linda Trausch, a former ad-agency worker who now volunteers at a GOP call center. “I’d rather have them make a business-friendly environment.”

Couric’s venture is reminiscent of Charles Kuralt crisscrossing the nation in a bus decades ago for his now-classic “On the Road” segments. But in reality, says Levinson of Fordham, “it’s more of a sop to the new-media revolution.”

But, says Robert Thompson, founder of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University in New York, there is some value in the “stodgy, old-school broadcast television, yet.” With many of the new-media outlets, the conversation is largely anonymous and quite often, he notes, it has a divisive edge.

“Look at the comments you frequently see online, and the discourse can get sour very quickly,” he says. But, he says, while the format of the Couric series is old-fashioned, it fairly radiates a reasonableness, a “sanity of discourse that we are seeing less of these days.”

The TV cameras and formality of the interviews has “a moderating effect that is downright civil and a valuable contribution to an election cycle that has been filled with coverage of angry people,” he says.

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Republican tea-party-backed Senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell is in her "I'm not a witch" TV ad. (Strategic Perception Inc./AP)

Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle: Any GOP candidate can win in November, says Jon Stewart

By Casey Bayer, Staff Editor / 10.07.10

In The Daily Show's continuing coverage of Indecision 2010 - Midterm Madness, comedian Jon Stewart said that it seems inevitable that the Republicans will take back the House of Representatives in November, attributing Republican victories to "a season of voter anger and change."

OK, so maybe Democrats are resigned to losing the House, but "how bad is it for the Dems in the Senate?" Stewart asked.

This bad: A loss of 10 Senate seats will tip the scales and give Republicans control of the Senate. And 13 Democrats' seats are "in danger."

Sen. John Cornyn's (R) of Texas comments in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that "All of our currently held Republican seats are safe seats, and we are playing offense."

It gets worse for Dems. Monitor staff writer Brad Knickerbocker wrote:

A USA Today/Gallup poll shows voters more likely to pick a generic Republican over a Democrat for Congress by 53-40 percent, particularly if that candidate is a newcomer. “It appears that the best type of candidate to be this fall is a Republican challenger,” writes Gallup analyst Jeffrey Jones.

Stewart's Exhibit A: Sharron Angle

Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D) of Nevada, is "an exciting and charismatic leader," says Stewart wryly, who is fighting for his seat in Nevada against his Republican challenger Sharron Angle.

Ms. Angle, as Stewart illustrates in a barrage of video clips, says that gay Americans should not be allowed to adopt children, believes it may be part of God's plan if rape victims get pregnant, does not believe the Constitution requires separation of church and state, has advocated withdrawing from the United Nations, and abolishing the EPA and much of the tax code.

"She wants to dissolve the post office and send all her messages through angels, they're everywhere," Stewart joked.

"So here's the thing, Reid is tied with her," Stewart said. "Which can only mean one thing. Nevadans must really hate the EPA...or Harry Reid."

Stewart posits: "In this climate, is there any extreme a Republican can go to that will hurt their chances in November?"

He cites Republican Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell saying "I am not a witch...I'm you," Stewart seems to think O'Donnell's "I am not a witch," ad campaign is the poster child for Anything and Everything Works for Republicans now.

"You're me?" Stewart asked. "Because I don't recall the last time I had to deny I was a witch."

Stewart doesn't mention Sen. Russ Feingold (D) of Wisconsin comparing rival Ron Johnson and "corporate special interests" to an excessively celebrating NFL player a la Randy Moss mock-mooning the crowd after a touchdown. That ad drew the ire of the NFL for misusing its footage and was pulled. But it got Feingold a day of national media attention.

Will such extremes from the election carry over to Capitol Hill? Say the Republicans take the back Senate too. Stewart looks at who might be the new Senate Majority Leader. South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint (R) could fill that role and would be counted on, as Stewart said, "to reign in ideological mustangs like Angle."

Enter a CNN clip reporting on comments by DeMint, where he said that gays and unwed mothers should be banned from teaching.

What is the middle-of-the-road voter to do?

"It's a peculiar election season," Stewart said, "where once again, Americans are being told just how divided we are as a nation. And how we must pick from one of two doctrinaire choices."

We suspect that Stewart would say the solution is to attend the Rally to Restore Sanity on Oct. 30 on the National Mall in Washington.

Editor's note: The original subhead to this story incorrectly referred to Ms. O'Donnell's, "I am a witch" campaign. As her ad clearly states, O'Donnell says that she is not, in fact, a witch.

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Kathleen Parker and Eliot Spitzer host the CNN prime-time show "Parker/Spitzer." ) (Art Streiber/CNN/AP)

Parker/Spitzer struggles through good intentions and weird moments

By Gloria Goodale, Staff writer / 10.05.10

CNN’s latest gambit to pump up its prime-time ratings – the new hour-long, “Parker/Spitzer” news magazine show – debuted Monday night as something of a gathering of earnest first years at, say, a pretty good law school.

The newbie cohosts – Pulitzer prize-winning conservative columnist Kathleen Parker and New York’s former governor and attorney general, the disgraced Eliot Spitzer – were fitted out for serious business in demure pearls and a sober dark suit. A bunch of newspapers were strewn on the table in front of them – implying more high-mindedness, for sure.

They introduced their show as being about ideas, not irrational table-pounding, an apparent swipe at their competition for the time slot, Fox’s Bill O’Reilly and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. The next hour was a jumble of good intentions mixed in with some downright weird moments that somebody outside of the show’s programming bubble ought to have vetted.

The opening statements from each probably would have gotten them booted from a courtroom for immediately straying from the show’s stated premise: Ms. Parker knocked Sarah Palin for being too coy with voters and demanded she announce her 2012 intentions. Mr. Spitzer railed against President Obama for allowing the treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, to handle the bank bailout, and demanded the president fire the man.

After a talking heads segment, the team brought on Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren to deconstruct the new consumer agency she is helping build, as well as explain why she didn’t go through a confirmation hearing. All well and good, if not exactly heart-pounding programming.

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin bopped in to pitch his new movie, “The Social Network,” and got to slam both Ms. Palin and the two political parties (“The Democrats may have moved into the center, but the Republicans have moved into a mental institution.”) In one of the show's weird moments, guest Henry Blodget, a former Merrill Lynch insider whom Spitzer successfully prosecuted, came on to trade compliments with the former AG.

That was uncomfortable enough, but in the final segment a roundtable of more talking heads answered three Jay Leno-style questions, the last of which was, "What is your favorite guilty pleasure?"

Ummm. For the record, your honor, (and for those who don’t quite remember what brought Spitzer down,) he resigned after admitting to consorting with prostitutes.

Kathleen Parker niftily took that question for the former prosecutor. His fave? NASCAR, in case you wondered.

Robert Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University in New York, says the biggest problem with all this isn’t that it was too earnest or even too weird, it’s that the overall show just wasn’t very good.

Mr. Thompson applauds the show’s stab at bipartisanship, bringing in two intelligent people from different ends of the political spectrum to thoughtfully dissect the news. But, he says, “there is nothing that says this can’t be really good entertainment at the same time as it upholds good, old-fashioned journalistic values,” which, he adds, CNN has had a history of maintaining. Thompson says Spitzer, the politician of the two, needs to talk less and listen more, and programmers should rely less on gimmicks.

The effort is reminiscent of Katie Couric’s arrival at the helm of the "CBS Evening News," adds Mr. Thompson, when the former NBC morning host tried a passle of half-baked ideas out on the audience, including a cutesy invitation to viewers to help her devise the perfect sign-off for the show. Eventually, he says, the show settled into a program very much like the other two evening news broadcasts.

Between NBC, CBS and ABC, those shows still draw respectable audiences, around 15 million nightly, versus the much smaller numbers of the primetime cable news magazine shows. And CBS’ venerable news magazine program, “60 Minutes,” still ranks high in the ratings, even after decades on the air.

“That show understands that solid news reporting about important issues can be great entertainment,” he points out. In this transitional era from legacy broadcasting to new media such as the Internet and mobile phones, he adds, programmers who remember these lessons are the ones that will survive.

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ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Jonathan Karl (l.) and Politico Chief White House Correspondent Mike Allen (c.) grilled Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller (r.) at a Washington pizza joint in the first episode of 'The Scoop.' (ABC News screengrab)

'The Scoop' experiment: Joe Miller, a pizza, and a bear hunting permit

By Dave Cook, staff writer / 10.05.10

Since 1966, The Christian Science Monitor has hosted breakfasts where reporters tried to wheedle information out of politicians over bacon and eggs.

This week, two of Washington’s most tenacious reporters are trying something similar over lunch in an interesting collaboration that blurs the line between online and broadcast reporting.

Politico’s Chief White House Correspondent Mike Allen and ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Jonathan Karl grilled Alaskan senatorial candidate Joe Miller in a two-part web video posted on both the Politico and ABC News websites. They dubbed the experiment “The Scoop.”

In his widely read daily blog “Playbook,” which previews Washington’s news agenda, Mr. Allen wrote that he and Mr. Karl have been taking sources to off-the-record lunches together since 2001. Most took place at the Bombay Club, a trendy restaurant across Lafayette Park from the White House, or in the cafeteria in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

What is unusual is having reporters from competing news organizations share the screen in a high profile interview. Mr. Miller ran as a "tea party" insurgent and defeated the incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski to land the Republican nomination. Senator Murkowski is now mounting a write-in campaign.

In an email, Karl said “The Scoop is a one-time experiment we hope will become something more.” A clip from the Miller interview was part of Karl’s Monday appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America.

Karl described the project as “a chance do something different and take some chances you can’t necessarily take on a regular broadcast. This format allows for a conversation that is both informal and in-depth.”

The Monitor Breakfasts are now recorded and made available to news outlets through a partnership with Fora.tv.

The Miller interview, divided into two segments, runs more than 13 minutes – much longer than the the time that would be available to reporters on a network newscast. The session took place at “We The Pizza,” a Capitol Hill eatery whose chef, Spike Mendelsohn, delivers a mushroom pie during the interview and stays to ask a question about candidate Miller’s beard.

Miller did not appear to break new ground on policy during the interview. He argued that the issue of setting a minimum wage is “clearly up to states.” He also restated his position that federal unemployment benfeits are not authorized by the US Constitution. And he ducked the issue of whether former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin should run for president, saying it was “her choice entirely.”

But the session offered interesting clues to the candidate’s personality and personal plans. “Mike and I have found that some of our most interesting discussions with newsmakers happen over lunch when everybody is a little more relaxed,” Karl said. “We wanted to see if we could make that work in an on-the-record format so our readers – and viewers – could get a chance to listen in.”

Miller, a West Point and Yale University Law School graduate, appeared quite relaxed. “Fitting in is not my concern,” he said early in the interview. The candidate added that he favors “a lot of defunding” as a way of changing current spending priorities. Miller and his wife, Kathleen, have eight children and he said “most of our kids” will come to Washington if he wins.

Most candidates say they want to spend as much time as possible in their home state, and Miller was no exception. “We are going to spend most of our time in Alaska that we can, at least outside of the duties that we have here,” Miller said. But one reason he cited for wanting to get home was unusual. It seems one of his sons has a bear hunting permit he wants to use.

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The "Tea Party Coloring Book for Kids" from coloringbook.com is seen here. (Via Coloringbook.com)

Stephen Colbert tips his hat to Tea Party coloring book for kids

By Casey Bayer, Staff editor / 10.05.10

There's a new way to teach your children Tea Party values: "The Tea Party Coloring Book for Kids."

And a bonus? Stephen Colbert has endorsed it.

In the "Tip of my hat/Wag of my finger" segment on Monday night's "The Colbert Report," Colbert says, "It's full of pictures, puzzles, and games designed to teach kids Tea Party values, and at 32 pages, it's more comprehensive than that other conservative kids' activity book: The GOP's Pledge to America."

Of course, the Pledge wasn't for kids under the age of 40, judging by the photos. Perhaps, this activity book fills a conservative outreach gap.

Coloringbook.com describes the book as:

"A very pleasant song, coloring and activity book on Liberty, Faith, Freedom and so much more! Get involved, participate, self reliance, freedom of choice, work, government-of-for-by the people, Leadership, Ingenuity, Jobs and responsibility!"

Kids can color patriotic images of the American flag and the front of the New York Stock Exchange as they read about the "Freedom of Choice and Economics," or "What is a Tax."

IN PICTURES: Tea Parties

One page reads:

"The Tea Party calls upon our representatives to limit the government's role in everyday life, and to support people and businesses, but not demand from, control or over tax the people or businesses. The government should never become a burden in our lives."

"Fun! Nothing, nothing brings joy to a child like a five-clause sentence," Colbert said.

Cue one Democratic Party-sized yawn here?

Nope, try outrage. And death threats.

Wayne Bell, publisher of the Tea Party coloring book from Really Big Coloring Books in Clayton, Mo., told FoxNews.com that he has "received messages containing 'horrible, nasty, vitriolic stuff,' including a desire for someone to place him in a 'chloroform headlock' since its publication."

And Christopher Knight from the LA Times' Culture Monster blog calls the coloring book "kiddie propaganda art." He also points out that:

"it's the premise of the coloring book that is the real eye-roller. Inside the front cover, the unidentified author explains that the origins of today's tea party are found in the iconic 1773 event in Boston's harbor - and gets the history wrong."

Why all the anger?

Bell insists that the purpose of the coloring book is not political. He denies that the Tea Party is behind the book and that any proceeds go to the Tea Party movement. "We're not really making a political statement," Bell told CBS's Political Hotsheet, and noted that the company also has an Obama coloring book. To Coloringbook.com's credit, the Obama and Tea Party coloring books are featured side-by-side on their homepage.

And in an interview on St. Louis Fox 2 News in the Morning, Bell said, "This [coloring book] is very educational, it doesn't mention Democrat, it doesn't mention Republican, it doesn't even have those words in there. It's not like were some sort of partisan-type company."

But Knight's blog takes note of Real Big Coloring Books' partnership with Mead Westvaco Corp. The company that prints and distributes Real Big Coloring Books' product also has an active political action committee in Richmond, Va. Knight writes:

"According to the Center for Responsive Politics, MeadWestvaco's PAC has spent more than $95,000 in the current election cycle on contributions to 17 House and nine Senate candidates, 91% Republicans. In May, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich led a forum at MeadWestvaco's Richmond offices calling for repeal of healthcare legislation passed this year by Congress."

The "Tea Party Coloring Book for Kids," isn't controversial enough to join the list of "5 books almost anyone might want to burn". But viewers beware. Colbert's Tea Party kids' books (spoofs involving Delaware Senate Candidate Christine O'Donnell and New York's gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino) might. His satirical books are the furthest thing from kid- or family-friendly viewing.

IN PICTURES: Tea Parties

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Stephen Colbert (l.), Jon Stewart (c.) and Steve Carell appear on stage at Comedy Central's 'Night Of Too Many Stars: An Overbooked Concert For Autism Education' at the Beacon Theatre in New York on Oct. 2. (Charles Sykes/AP)

Are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert going all serious on us?

By Gloria Goodale, Staff writer / 10.04.10

As the embrace deepens between comedy and politics this election cycle, Comedy Central’s satiric duo, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, are inching ever closer to the very institutions they delight in mocking.

Jon Stewart actually landed a nod from President Obama, who last week name-dropped his upcoming only-half-mock “Rally to Restore Sanity” – with a few garbles – during a chat with college students. He's also practically a political éminence grise, with New York magazine putting him on a September cover and proclaiming this to be the Jon Stewart decade.

Then, not to be missed was political commentator Ariana Huffington’s nod of support for Stephen Colbert last week, on the heels of the comedian’s jaunt up to Capitol Hill to testify at a congressional hearing on migrant workers' rights.

All of this sober straight-talk about two TV pranksters raises this ticklish question: Are the jesters circling a tad too close to that tricky line between funny and serious? After all, it is possible to cross that divide, as jokester Al Franken showed when he jumped from "Saturday Night Live" funny man to senator from Minnesota (reportedly, he often makes the extra effort not to tell jokes so that his colleagues will take him seriously).

“It is a genuine worry,” says Amber Day, author of “Satire and Dissent: Interventions in Contemporary Political Debate.” Crossing over into Serious Land could cost the satirists part of their audience, which likes them precisely because they expose the degree to which politicians can be stage-managed and inauthentic. “If they start to become part of that establishment," she says, then their humor "loses its power.”

They are running a bit of a risk with their dueling political rallies, which are being trumpeted by liberals, in Washington on Halloween weekend. The events are still four weeks away, but one-third of the public has heard something about them, according to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

At the moment, Ms. Day says, Stewart and Colbert are managing to avoid the danger zone of seriousness. “I think they are going to try very hard [not to walk up to that line].... They will continue reminding everyone they are comedians making silly fart jokes and trying not to be entirely respectable, partially because that’s what they do but also in a semicalculating way they have to,” she says.

The satirists are at their least effective when they are doing live coverage, as would be the case at the upcoming rallies, says Geoffrey Baym, author of "From Cronkite to Colbert: The Evolution of Broadcast News." "They derive their credibility from their outsider status,” he says. “They are the kid throwing spitballs.” Losing the outsider stance by becoming so engaged with a message and a serious tone would actually undermine their power to persuade, he says.

When politicians start to endorse the comedians' ideas, the only position for Stewart and Colbert to take is to retreat, says branding expert Adam Hanft, creator of the political website www.spinseason.com. Stewart "will have to distance himself from any appearance of being too cozy" with the political establishment, he says.

That's just what Stewart did on his show Thursday night, after Obama mentioned his rally. First, he crowed at the reference. “Yesssss,” he laughed. “President Obama just plugged the rally.”

But then he poked fun at the Democratic president’s jumbled title for the rally, saying he would probably have to use the commander-in-chief’s new rally name: “Rally for American in Favor of a Return to Sanity or Something Like That.”

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White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gestures during his daily news briefing at the White House in Washington, on Oct. 1. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

Another White House departure? Robert Gibbs says he's happy where he is.

By Dave Cook, staff writer / 10.04.10

It is awkward when the spokesman becomes the story, as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs's experience at Monday’s briefing showed.

The Obama White House is trying to remain focused on the critical midterm elections now just one month away. But major changes in President Obama’s inner circle – including the departure of chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and several key economic advisers – have focused attention on who is staying and who might join the West Wing exodus.

On Saturday, Politico posted a story saying Mr. Gibbs, a close adviser and confidant of the president’s, was being considered as a potential chairman of the Democratic National Committee to help with the president’s 2012 election bid. The current DNC chair, former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, would move to a cabinet position, the story said.

Seeking to quash the story, Gibbs tweeted on Saturday: “I have not had any conversations about the future – it is a great honor to have the job I have right now and I am very happy doing it.”

At Monday’s White House briefing, Gibbs was questioned closely about his plans. In response to a query from April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks, Gibbs said, “April, I do love this job. I haven’t had any conversations about the future. I don’t intend to have any conversations about the future in the next few weeks. … Everyone who works here is focused on the thousands and thousands of things on their to-do list that they have to do every day.”

Gibbs sought to shut off questions about himself, saying, “I am just going to try to give the information on a whole host of issues I know are far more important than me."

But some reporters keyed on the press secretary's use of the phrase “in the next few weeks” when denying he had plans to discuss his future with the president. Veteran CBS Radio reporter Mark Knoller tweeted that it was a “non-denial denial.”

Potentials successors for Gibbs if he did move to another admistration post include his deputy, Bill Burton, and former Time magazine correspondent Jay Carney, who is now communications director for Vice President Biden.

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