Rem Reider of American Journalism Review has noted that Citizen Kane has gotten better press than Beverly Hills Chihuahua. There's a reason for that too.

From the Dec.-Jan. '09 issue of American Journalism Review:

A study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that the media cast McCain in a much more negative light than it did Obama. But that hardly means the press was unfair to the Arizonan. Covering the candidates equally would be a false equivalence if one campaign were performing far better than the other one.

"Citizen Kane" no doubt got much more positive coverage than "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." My beloved Phillies got plenty of good ink when they won the World Series this year. All the years they failed to qualify for the playoffs, not so much.

The truth is, the Obama campaign was well-organized, disciplined, virtually error-free. Obama was an inspiring candidate to many, a dazzling public speaker with an inspiring storyline.

The McCain campaign, in contrast, was a train wreck, lurching from message to message. And McCain, who can be an immensely appealing figure, seemed angry and unfocused.

While Obama often appealed to our better instincts, McCain halfheartedly clung to the outdated Karl Rove playbook. And all of this was playing out after eight dreadful years of Republican rule, with an economy in crisis and two unfinished wars. It would have taken a near-perfect campaign for a Republican to win, and McCain's fell far short.

Two key moments in the homestretch crystallized the contest and sealed McCain's fate. On September 15, with the Wall Street meltdown well under way and the banking crisis clear to pretty much everyone else, the GOP standard-bearer repeated his soon-to-be-inoperative mantra that the "fundamentals of our economy are strong." Then, he briefly "suspended" his campaign, threatened to skip the next debate with Obama, and returned to Washington to do not much as Congress took up the bailout. It was a transparent gimmick. The contrast between his behavior and Obama's preternatural steadiness couldn't have been starker.

McCain got his negative publicity the old-fashioned way. He earned it.