For years now the obvious counter to Fox News Channel was to go left but CNN headed conspicuously right and MSNBC, with the exception of Keith Olberman, also followed suit (maybe a bit sluggishly).  The ionly explanation I can fathom is that the networks feel pressure from advertisers to go right.  After all, the reason papers cover "business" news so exhaustively and expensively is not reader demand but advertiser demand.  I use the quote marks because, compared to thirty years ago, business news has become stock market news.  There is far less coverage about actual business but far more about stocks.

New products, market trends, nada.  Stock market movement and earnings per share?  Lots and lots.  No wonder we "make nothing."  Everything is generic (particularly in the post tech era market).  Ever look at a list of the largest companies in the US?  In the 1950s and 1960s the list was dominated by makers of things (often food and other consumer goods).  Now it's all stores, banks, and insurance companies.

"With 38 percent of Republicans dissatisfied with their party's field, things could get interesting [...] Of the much smaller 14 percent of Democrats who are dissatisfied with their candidates"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18505030/sit e/newsweek/page/3/

[blockquote]"If I were a crack cable news programmer I'm sure I'd learn something from all of this."[/blockquote]

Yes, but if he were a crack cable news programmer, what he'd learn from this is that he clearly needs to shill harder for the Republican candidates.  Making sure to call them "regal" and contrast that directly with the Dem field was a good start, but surely we can come up with some more stories about Edwards' hair.  And they can surely point out that Clinton is a woman and Obama is black in a few more subtly disparraging ways.  And isn't it about time for a McCain bio-pic about his heroic days as a soldier?  And maybe another "9/11" hagiography for Rudy?

Jon Stewart has pointed out a number of times the tremendous irony that unnamed Democrats beat the named ones every time.  It's troubling that the named head-to-head polls all lean in a conservative direction (albeit anyone other than Guiliani and McCain are crushed, and thankfully the public has begun to sour on its age-old love affair with McCain.)
Does anyone have any thoughts about why this is?  
These kinds of polls that show unnamed Democrats outperforming any named one just shows to me that voters are looking for an opposition candidate but can't seem to stand any of the ones the Democrats put forward.  In this kind of atmosphere, someone like Hillary Clinton seems like exactly the wrong kind of candidate to put forward.

as far as the excitement gap.   It is interesting to note that if you look at how often the names of the major candidates are being searched on the search engines, the dems are being searched about 5 times more often.   This would seem to indicate greater "interest" in the dem candidates.   More in my diary here.   I'm  tracking this information weekly and will be posting a diary monthly.  

Another possibility for the difference in the number of viewers is that Republicans are interested in hearing all sides and tuned into both debates whereas Democrats don't want to hear all sides so they didn't watch the Republican debates.

I also find it interesting the Republicans are willing to go on MSNBC for a debate whereas Democrats aren't willing to go on FOX. To me, this shows that Republicans are willing to deal with tough questions from the other side (because I consider MSNBC to lean to the Democratic side) whereas Democrats are afraid of the tough questions from the other side.