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The Republican primaries and its media coverage seem to be especially crazy this year.

Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich have all unexpectedly become frontrunners over Mitt Romney at some point during the primaries, with most of them falling quickly out of popularity after their 15 minutes of fame.

But certain aspects of this race have actually been quite common. As communications researcher John Zaller observed in his 1996 work The Myth of Massive Media Impact Revived:

“In some of these cases, media coverage takes a quite distinctive form: It begins with a modest flow of mostly positive messages as reporters ‘discover’ the new candidate. As the candidate then ‘takes off’ in the public opinion polls, the flow of both positive and negative messages increases, as reporters undertake both to explain the candidate’s ‘better-than-expected’ success and to scrutinize more seriously the candidate’s credentials for office.”

This, he argues, is evident in Gary Hart’s 1984 performance in seeking the Democratic nomination to the presidency. as well as Ross Perot’s independent attempt in 1992. This pattern certainly describes the media coverage and popularity for the aforementioned Republican candidates, rising to the spotlight only to be heavily criticized and even ridiculed by the media.

What seems to be the most outstanding component of these primaries, however, is not only how quickly poor candidates rose and fell, but that a certain portion of the Republican Party will just not settle down with Romney and have to keep searching for unsatisfactory alternatives.

From this pattern, many questions may be raised of the tendencies of today’s Grand Old Party. Are Romney’s religious beliefs deterring voters? Or has a portion of the part of the party become so conservative that it is hesitant to lend support to one of the most moderate candidates on the ballot? Will the reluctance to support Romney carry out to the general elections, supposing that he wins?

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