Cable news chatter is changing the electoral landscape

By Howard Kurtz and Karen Tumulty
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 11, 2010

When Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News program, he read her some advice from another Fox commentator, Sarah Palin.

Palin, urging the Delaware Republican to "speak through Fox News," had said on Twitter that she should be spending her time with voters back home "versus appeasing national media seeking your destruction."

"She is absolutely right," said O'Donnell, although she has held almost no public events since that television appearance last month.

In the same period, her Democratic opponent, Chris Coons, appeared on MSNBC, where host Chris Matthews asked him about the inexperienced O'Donnell: "Does it bother you personally that someone like her, with that background, should run for public office?" Coons said no, but the leading question hung in the air.

(More here.)