It's Terrorism and Taxes, Stupid

Of course the stupid ones will never figure this out. Which is why the November elections will become a man-caused diaster for the Democrats.

In his upset Senate victory Tuesday, Brown emphasized two big issues overlooked by most political analysts: taxes and terrorism. Massachusetts voters ranked them as the third and fourth most important issues, behind only health care and the economy, according to a Rasmussen poll. Democratic challenger Martha Coakley actually did reasonably well among voters on health care and the economy. Brown's overwhelming victory came from voters who wanted lower taxes, stronger national security and a tougher stance on terror.

Those who considered taxes their top priority favored Brown 6-to-1 (87 percent for Brown). As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama understood that issue and promised not to raise "one penny of taxes" on the middle class. Unfortunately, he also promised health care reform would be self-financing, a feat that requires significant new revenues. These costs come on top of a large stimulus package and mounting deficits. Clearly, the public is worried, and Brown capitalized on it.

He also won big on national security: 67 percent to Coakley's 29 percent. Two themes stand out. One is that President Obama's efforts to befriend old enemies yielded little and conveyed a sense of weakness and equivocation. Iran is still building its nuclear capacity, insulting the U.S. and killing protesters. Venezuela is still nationalizing its economy and rallying the Latin American left. Russia is still bullying its neighbors and declining into a thuggish autocracy. North Korea is still North Korea. Obama's biggest foreign policy initiative, his conciliatory speech in Cairo, had little impact in the Muslim world.

With so few successes, the Obama administration must now re-evaluate its generous, multilateral diplomacy toward adversaries. That, at least, is one message from Massachusetts.

Another is that voters are unhappy with the administration's approach to terrorism, which downplays the threat and treats it mainly as a law-enforcement issue. The key officials here are Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security, and Attorney General Eric Holder. They have failed to convince the public that their approach is effective, or well executed.

Again, Brown capitalized.

Republicans would do well to follow the Brown model for success this fall.

Newspaper Circulation Crumbles

Sure, people are cutting back on non-essential purposes during a bad economy, but I suspect even if were were enjoying a robust economy many of these newspapers would still be losing readers.

But this is as bad as it gets. Check that. It'll probably get worse.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations released this morning the spring figures for the six months ending March 31, 2009, showing that the largest metros continue to shed daily and Sunday circulation -- now at a record rate.

According to ABC, for 395 newspapers reporting this spring, daily circulation fell 7% to 34,439,713 copies, compared with the same March period in 2008. On Sunday, for 557 newspapers, circulation was down 5.3% to 42,082,707. These averages do not include 84 newspapers with circulations below 50,000 due to a change in publishing frequency.

The percent comparisons are for the same period ending in March 2008. (All daily averages are for Monday through Friday.)

Daily circulation at The New York Times dropped 3.5% to 1,039,031. The Times' Sunday circ was down 1.7% to 1,451,233.

The Washington Post lost 1.6% of its daily circ to 665,383 and 2.3% to 868,965.

USA Today, as reported earlier this month, lost 7.4% of its daily circulation to 2,113,725 due to a decline in hotel copies.

Daily circulation at The Wall Street Journal was up a fraction 0.6% to 2,082,189, but this was certainly the exception, not the rule.

Daily circulation at The Boston Globe skidded 13.6% to 302,638 copies. Sunday decreased 11.2% to 466,665.

New York's Daily News was off 14%, but rival New York Post lost even more, at minus 20%. The Star-Ledger of Newark shed over 16%. Newsday, by comparison, lost 3%*.

Daily circulation at The Miami Herald fell 15.8% to 202,122. Sunday is down 13.1% to 270,166.

San Francisco Chronicle shed 15.7% of daily copies to 312,118. Sunday fell 16.5% to 312,118.

Tribune Co. papers rolled out highly touted redesigns in this period, but lost readers. The Chicago Tribune lost 7.4% of its daily circulation to 501,202 and 4.5% on Sunday to 858,256 copies. Circulation plunged at the Los Angeles Times at 6.5% of its daily circulation (Monday through Friday) to 723,181 copies. Sunday was down 7.4% to 1,019,388.

The Philadelphia Inquirer lost 13.7% of its daily circulation to 288,298. Sunday was hit just as hard, down 12% to 550,400. Daily circulation at its sister publication the Daily News fell 7.6% to 99,103. (At the end of March the Inquirer started distributing the Daily News within its pages. The change does not affect the circulation for this period.)

Daily circulation at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution plummeted almost 20% to 261,828. Sunday decreased 7% to 462,011.

The top 25 in circulation are listed here.

These plummeting figures can't be strictly blamed on newspapers losing readers due to a liberal slant, especially when the one paper you could say that has a conservative op-ed slant, the New York Post, dropped 20%. Since the Post is owned by News Corp. (as is the WSJ), I'd expect them to weather this. However, some of these newspapers are hemorrhaging so may readers and losing ad revenue at record rates they just may not survive with a print model. Moving strictly online is already being done with some large dailies and that may be the only avenue of survival at this point.

Linked at Instapundit. Thanks!

Obama Saves a Job: Tribune Reporter Joins Administration

We've figured out how Obama will "save" jobs. He'll just add reporters from dying newspapers to his administration. Hey, when your job the past couple of years has been building this guy up to near mythical status, you may as well be officially on the payroll.

Jill Zuckman, a Chicago Tribune Washington correspondent and frequent guest on political talk shows such as MSNBC's "Hardball" and Fox Broadcasting's "Fox News Sunday," is leaving to join President Barack Obama's administration in the Department of Transportation.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a Peoria Republican and former seven-term member of the U.S. House, has picked Zuckman to serve as assistant to the secretary and director of public affairs.

"I'm so excited about this. I think this is going to be really fun," Zuckman said by phone Sunday. "I'm excited about going to a department in the administration that's going to play a huge role in hopefully putting people back to work. There is so much money for transportation projects around the country, and I hope that that helps to stimulate the economy to get the country moving again."

Zuckman is the second Tribune Co. reporter in the nation's capital to accept a position with the new administration this month. Cissy Baker, vice president in charge of Tribune Co.'s recently unified Washington News Bureau, on Feb. 7 informed staff that Peter Gosselin, who previously had reported for the Los Angeles Times, accepted a job as chief speech writer for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

In case you couldn't tell, she's very excited.

Linked by Michelle Malkin. Thanks!

Chicago Tribune Near Bankruptcy

I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg. Can't be long until the newspapers are lining up for their bailout money.

Tribune has hired bankruptcy advisers as the ailing newspaper company seeks to stave off a potential bankruptcy filing, people briefed on the matter said.

The newspaper, which was taken private last year by billionaire investor Samuel Zell, has hired the investment bank Lazard and the law firm Sidley Austin, these people said. Tribune has been hobbled by debt related to that sale last year, which has been compounded by the growing drought of advertising for newspapers.

It is only the latest — and biggest — sign of duress for the newspaper industry yet. Several newspaper companies have struggled to cope with declining revenues and mounting debt woes.

Declining revenue, mounting debt woes, and readers fleeing in droves due to the relentlessly liberal slant.

It's not as if this is anything new. Over the years countless papers have failed and/or wound up merging with others. The print newspaper industry is dying and there's no turning back.

Another Media Quagmire: LA Times and Chicago Tribune Cutting Jobs

Look at the bright side. There will be fewer propagandists journalists gushing over Barack Obama.

Tribune Company newspapers like The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune will quickly cut costs — by printing fewer papers and employing fewer journalists — top company executives said on Thursday.

Samuel Zell, the chairman and chief executive of Tribune, and Randy Michaels, the company’s chief operating officer, revealed the cuts during a conference call with Wall Street analysts.

They also said the struggling company has looked at the column inches of news produced by each reporter, and by each paper’s news staff. Finding wide variation, they said, they have concluded that it could do without a large number of news employees and not lose much content.

What does that tell you about these people?

Mr. Michaels said of the changes, “This is going to happen quickly.”

Hurry. Time's wasting.