A blog about television by TIME’s TV critic James Poniewozik.

Primary Colors

One of the major problems for TV news in covering a national primary for multiple candidates: what color do you assign the candidates? For the Democrats, it's relatively easy: Obama and Clinton are swapping light and dark blue on the various networks. But in the Republican three-way race, it gets uglier. On CNN, McCain gets bright Republican red, Romney a sort of chocolate brick, and Huckabee, let's not mince words, gets Pepto-Bismol.

CBS, on the other hand, completely ditches the standard partisan color theme and gives McCain yellow, Romney purple and Huckabee turquoise. Lucky Huckabee!

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