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New York, October 2, 2008: As Congress struggles to pass a bail-out plan, economic issues remain at the forefront of the campaign. Meanwhile, the first debate performance from Obama and McCain has impacted the state of the race, even as all eyes are focused on tonight´s debate match up between Biden and Palin.

"The economy is continuing to dominate the race because it dominates the news," says Roland Schatz, President of Media Tenor International. "But it is also McCain who made the issue so prominent, by focusing his campaign strategy on pushing the bail-out bill. Since that hasn´t passed yet, the issue has not worked well for him."

The intense focus on the economy has also helped Obama. “The first debate for McCain and Obama was supposed to be about national security,” Schatz notes, “but the economic situation dominated the first third of the debate. This helped Obama, who generally does not do as well on topics related to defense and security as McCain.”

However, Schatz observed that when compared head to head on the economy, Obama only has a slight advantage over McCain and that both candidates face more negative statements from the media than positive ones.

Meanwhile, according to Media Tenor´s data, Governor Palin may have an advantage going into her debate with Joe Biden.

"In the midst of this, Palin is still a top news maker," notes Schatz. "On some networks she´s getting ten times the coverage that Biden is, and her share of positive coverage remains higher than his. There is intense focus on her, yes, but there are also low expectations for her in the debate because of her performance in recent TV interviews. If she exceeds expectations, it will be a positive for her,” he says. “This debate will be critical in deciding whether she will continue to be so prominent in the media coverage of the election and a central part of McCain´s strategy.”

For the third time, International Media analysis company Media Tenor is offering a detailed analysis of the U.S. presidential campaign. TV news coverage of the leading Presidential contenders is scrutinized at a detailed level. “The methodology was developed 15 years ago and has been successfully used not only to analyze the 2000 and 2004 U.S. Presidential campaigns, but also for International politics,” Schatz explains. Media Tenor´s Presidential Campaign Watch focuses not only on candidate standings, but also on topics and sources, while adding an international perspective. Results of Media Tenor studies will be regularly published on MediaChannel.org.

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