Good. Republican candidates are getting smart and avoiding the state-run media.
And, the state-run media can’t stand it.
Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle and Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul are taking some good advise from confidants and staying clear of the democratic-media complex. These outlets have noticed and are upset that Republican candidates won’t let them smear and slander them like they did the tea party movement.
Liberal Howard Kurtz at The Washington Post whined about it today:
Some of the most conservative and combative Republicans running for Congress are convinced that the media have it in for them.
But these candidates seem to regard it as an affront when reporters challenge them on their past statements and inconsistencies, which is a basic function of journalism. They are avoiding or limiting interviews with all but the friendliest faces as a way of circumventing the press. And some of them delight in skewering the mainstream media, a tactic that plays well with their base.
Since her primary victory in Nevada, Senate candidate Sharron Angle has spoken mainly with Fox News, sympathetic radio hosts, columnist George Will, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and, in an online video, Christian activist Ralph Reed. Angle told the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody last week that she’s not “running from the media,” but that “the whole point of an interview is to use it, like they say ‘earned media,’ to earn something with it, and I’m not going to earn anything from people who are there to badger me and use my words to batter me with. . . . Will they let me say I need $25 from a million people, go to SharronAngle.com, send money?”
Another Republican, Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul, told tea party activists they have to “control the message” — through advertising — to combat efforts “to paint us as something we’re not,” because “we’re not going to get a lot of help from the newspapers.” Both seem to think the media’s primary role should be to help them — raise money, carry a message — rather than hold them accountable.
Nicolle Wallace, the former Bush White House communications director, says candidates such as Angle and Paul have no need “to have a relationship with the national media. . . . They’re probably right in feeling the media haven’t figured out how to cover the tea party movement with objectivity and fairness.” But she said candidates must be “confident enough in the substance of their platform” to speak to local reporters.
Phil Singer, a spokesman for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign, says that “demonizing the mainstream press limits the candidate’s ability to take the next step” and appeal to moderate voters. “In some cases they’re making a bet they’ll be able to speak exclusively to their base and ride the anger in the broader electorate to victory. That’s a gamble.”
The candidates, some of them political neophytes, may be facing some “gotcha” questions, but that is part of the obstacle course of national politics. More experienced politicians anticipate such queries and find ways to brush them off.
Baloney. Don’t believe their lies.
The state-run media has proven itself time and time again that it has absolutely no love for conservatives. Stay away from these horrible propagandists. There will be plenty of other opportunities to get your message out.
NewsBusters has more.
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