Media Matters

     President Trump's potent insult to  Maryland Representative Elijah Cummings about his hometown of Baltimore left an indelible mark on this critic. Although I  was born and raised in Baltimore, I had not been there for decades. And yet it's a place I will never forget, just as the Baltimore residents will never forget Trump's statement that it was a rat-infested city not fit for human beings. ( I wonder if he had read the relatively recent account  in the Baltimore Sun that a rat had been found in the iconic Lexington Market, America's oldest public market place, circa 1782 ). Name me a city in the U.S.A. where rodents have never been spotted. Or name me an urban center which does not have its share of  poverty-laden neighborhoods. Baltimore is no better or worse than most other cities of its kind.      Yet Baltimore is also different: where diversity and uniqueness give Baltimore a fullness of life overflowing with sights, sou...

     Last week's second 2020 Democratic Debates brought up a lot of issues as usual, but keep coming back to  an important consideration: which candidate seems the most electable. Or somewhat electable. Or even a little electable. Those are hard questions to answer, because the election is so far away and things change. One situation may alter the election outcome a week before the vote. It's not impossible.      Yet there are some things that may never change a candidate's electability. This critic learned decades ago as a student in Dr. Kathleen Hall Jamieson's class that people vote for a President based on the individual's  knowledge, trustworthiness and charisma. And what is the one characteristic that's the most important? CHARISMA. ( Jamieson is now Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center.)      Those three traits still hold true as far as many people are concerned. Meaning: charisma is still the most salient a...