The 1994 elections were characterized by what most observers considered one of the more issueless, low-level campaigning seasons ever (S(ub)lime race of the year, 1994, p. 4). Within this context, the media's coverage of those campaigns was hampered by an evolving fact of news life: politicians are now incredibly media-savvy. It is difficult for a reporter to develop an objective account when the words and actions of the campaigners are so controlled. Such was the case in the recent California senatorial contest between incumbent Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, and challenger Michael Huffington, representing the Republican Party. In terms of the television and radio media, the candidates could control what was reported to the extent that they spoke to those media in ubiquitous "sound bites," arranging their campaign stops in terms of "photo ops." The nature of television, particularly, worked in the candidates' favor: television reportage is notoriously short-form. The print media, however, is a different matter. Able to assign reporters to cover the candidates over the long term, and needing more than sound bite-shortened speech clips to fill their pages, the print media covered the Feinstein-Huffington race in great detail. It was a degree of detail often not appreciated by the candidates - and not always exploited to its full potential by the print media itself. The dynamics of this interaction between the print media and candidates Feinstein and Huffington will be the focus of examination in this paper.
The November 1994 elections were a landmark in American politics (Roberts, 1994, p. 38-42). For the first time in decades the Republican Party has captured majorities in both houses of Congress. What was thought to be an anti-incumbent wave of sentiment, crossing party lines, resulted in a very different conclusion. Not a single Republican incumbent running for office lost his or her seat (Kelly, 1994, p. 58). Near...