A search of U.S. publications in Lexis Nexis for “Jim Webb” since Nov. 20, 2014 — the day the former Democratic senator and Reagan administration official announced he was considering a run for president — produces only 93 results.
Results for potential Republican 2016 candidate Mike Huckabee (“Huckabee”) since just three weeks ago, when he gave up his Fox News program and signaled a probable run: 227.
Though there are presently at least five Democrats who say they’re seriously considering bids for the White House — a sizable number — major media news coverage has disproportionately focused on the GOP side, which has at least nine potential candidates, and on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Many of the potential 2016 candidates are barely known to the public, but lack of visibility two years out isn’t the handicap it once was. Clinton has a commanding lead in the 2016 contest, but a Jan. 6, 2007, poll found that 61 percent of the respondents said they didn’t know enough about then-Sen. Barack Obama to have an opinion of him. He went on to defeat Clinton in the Democratic primary and win the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections.
“In doing this day in and day out, I know I write a lot more about the Republicans because there are just so many more of them,” said David Catanese, a senior politics writer for U.S. News and World Report. Catanese said there also tends to be more conflict on the GOP side.
“One day it’s Sen. Rand Paul taking a swipe at New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in New Hampshire, another day Mike Huckabee is quitting his show at Fox and slamming Beyonce, the next it is former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney saying he wants another shot,” he said. “And by then, it’s only Wednesday.”
It’s true there are more Republicans who say they may step into the 2016 race. In addition to those named by Catanese are Sen. Ted Cruz and former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas; Sen. Marco Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida; and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
But besides Webb, the Democratic bench features big names like Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-identified socialist. There is also Martin O’Malley, former governor of Maryland.
Both O’Malley and Sanders received separate mini-profiles in the New York Times — O’Malley in October 2014 and Sanders in December 2014 — but aside from that and a few TV appearances, coverage of the would-be roster has remained scant by comparison to Republicans.
The exception for Democrats is Clinton, who has seen more 2016 coverage than any other contender on either side since she left the Obama administration in early 2013. National polls of Clinton also consistently show her with massive leads over her possible primary competition.
“I think it’s pretty clear, just based on the polling, that the Republican field is much larger and more competitive at this point than the Democratic field,” said a politics reporter at the left-leaning Mother Jones who requested anonymity. “So, given the heavyweights involved on the GOP side, and the extent to which they’ve been running de-facto campaigns for months if not years, it’s only natural that that’s where the focus has been — that’s where the fireworks are most likely to be.”
Yet, even coverage of Clinton has sharply decreased in recent weeks. A Nexis search of U.S. publications for “Hillary Clinton” for the first 22 days of December rendered 434 results. For the first 22 days of January: 294.
“Her operation has limited her exposure as much as possible,” said Catanese. “She’s not out there every day popping up on MSNBC, like Rand and Rubio are on Fox News. She’s not doing interviews. Reporters on the Hillary beat are left waiting for her tweets for stories.”
In terms of conflict among Democrats, in the Times’s profile of O’Malley he was asked about Clinton. “My mind is not even in the compare-contrast mode,” he said.
“Webb hasn’t done it [critiqued Clinton]. O’Malley is shying away from it,” said Catanese. “So is Bernie Sanders. Being former colleagues in the administration, you won’t see Biden do it. So are any of them really serious? How many of them will pull the trigger?”
The Republican National Committee has already released its plans for the 2016 primary debates, which will act as a way to force potential candidates to officially declare themselves in or out. The Democratic National Committee has not.
A DNC official told the Washington Examiner that they’re in talks with TV news networks and “other groups” about setting up a debate schedule. He said they hope to announce the schedule “in the next couple of months.”
The Mother Jones reporter said the balance of coverage is likely to shift in the near future. “Once things heat up a little bit more, I do think you’ll see more reporters taking a deeper look at the other Democratic candidates,” he said. “Both because of the press corps’ appetite for drama and because of the pretty pronounced policy differences in a race that includes an actual socialist [Sanders] and a former Republican [administration official].”
Matt Bai, a national political columnist for Yahoo News, has written on Webb and O’Malley. Pointing to those columns, he said, “The nomination isn’t settled until it’s settled and other potential candidates should be taken seriously.”
