The 2006 election narrative

I've been talking alot about how the media frames the upcoming election. Take a look at this Reuters article as example, (the whole thing's like this.)

Dogged by the increasingly violent Iraq war, one of their lowest approval ratings in decades, high-profile legislative setbacks and the unpopularity of President George W. Bush, Republicans are scrambling to hold onto Congress.

Opinion polls show most Americans believe the nation is headed in "the wrong direction," and Democrats argue it's time for voters to give them the reins of power.

All the context in this article, "dogged," "stuggling," "scrambling," is merely the writer's opinion of the state of things injected into the storyline. This could just as easily be written in a much more neutral way, "Facing a number of difficulties the Republicans are working to maintain their majority in Congress." But that's not the current framing narrative.

Despite polling right now that shows the Republicans maintaining a slim majority, the growing narrative is one of expected Republican defeat, and that opinion creeps in to have effects throughout the media coverage.

(The countering narrative that the Republicans prefer is one of a disunified Democratic party that can't settle on a single position on anything and, thus, will find someway to lose any election.)