Night and Day

Today's N&D brought to you by the letters M, S, and M again. From the Old Gray Hag's blog:

Ask most political analysts and they’ll tell you that at this point, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and Mitt Romney, the former governor of Michigan –- oops, sorry, Massachusetts –- both have about an equal chance to win their party’s nomination and become president.

But that might be tough to tell by looking at the press contingent that showed up at each announcement.

Mr. Obama’s aides said that he had credentialed more than 600 media for his announcement in Springfield., Ill., on Saturday, and while campaigns are given to exaggeration, that sure seemed right: They were everywhere, filling platforms and hotel rooms. There were crews from Japan and England (foreign news crews are the first and surest sign of a very heavily covered event) as well as some of the bigger feet in the American political media: Joe Klein, Chris Matthews and our own Maureen Dowd among them. They had to rent a full-blown American Airlines jet to cart the candidate and his reporters around.

Guess who was not here this morning as Mr. Romney made his announcement? There were probably 200 members of the media; no Japanese crews in sight. Mr. Klein, Mr. Matthews and Ms. Dowd could not be spotted. And the transportation? We are writing this from a Dornier 328 commuter jet, which has been commandeered to carry Mr. Romney’s press contingent to Des Moines. And yes, there are empty seats.

Nope...no liberal media bias.