Monday, January 16, 2012

Spin in the Presidential Race

A report by economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman talks about how presidential candidates and the media can spin data into their favor, in this example, Mitt Romney. Romney claims that under Obama's term, there has been a net loss of 2 million jobs. While this technically may be true, Romney fails to take into account the fact that Obama was handed a nation that was rapidly losing jobs. After Obama passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, job loss in America began to slow and eventually in the spring of 2010, jobs began to be created. Romney uses spin to try to gain the upper-hand, hoping his spin reaches the uneducated individuals in America. Personally, I find the use of spin and unfair attacks during presidential races both disgraceful and disgusting. Is there any way to stop this sort of spin? Are people just going to have to start getting more curious and do more reading and researching?
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2 comments:

Alyssa_Block said...

While I do not think that the spin is necessarily fair, I do not really see it stopping anytime soon, if ever. One result of elections becoming more competitive in the United States is that candidates must be willing to go further than simply advocating for their ideals and plans: they must now be willing to use mudslinging in the hopes that they can take down their opponents. Spin has consumed much of the political process, as more and more candidates resort to spinning information in their favor. Some of it can be subtle. According to this article, (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/01/11/national/w233823S66.DTL&ao=2), while Obama claims to be "indifferent" to the Republican race, recent actions and events suggest he is paying close attention, and trying to downplay and debunk false rumors, regarding job creation for example.

The problem with the alternative (living with spin and just having to dig deeper to find the truth) is that many people won't read further. From the candidates point of view, the main benefit of spin is that people will hear the incorrect information and accept it as the truth, without taking time to check the validity of the accusations.

January 16, 2012 at 10:24 AM
Jennifer Nguyen said...

I agree with Alyssa. This type of spin seems completely unfair and manipulative, but the only reason this even works is because so many people are politically and economically unaware of the situations that our country is in. This relates to the idea that we can't have a perfect economy unless everyone knows everything they possibly can about it. Since the beginning of time, "spin" has been used to get the upper hand in most competitions. I do think that using it is completely unfair, but at the same time how can we completely stop it? Obama could try and create more awareness of the spin that is being used against him, but that would require an ample amount of time and money which may not even be available to him at this time. I guess really the only way Obama can fight back without using spin as well would be to fight off the allegations made against him and show factual evidence that contradicts what Romney is claiming.

January 16, 2012 at 11:15 AM

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