Has the media picked its man?

January 4, 2008

Last year, Fred Barnes, the prominent conservative pundit and executive editor of The Weekly Standard, noted, “In 2000, his aides joked that McCain’s base was the media. In truth, it was.”

I rarely agree with Barnes, but he’s unfortunately right about this. Back in 2000, McCain was an outsider insurgent candidate taking on a party establishment that had rallied behind George W. Bush. Sensing an opportunity, McCain (who had always been relatively chummy with journalists) decided a charm offensive towards political reporters would be key to competing effectively. It worked; reporters were enthralled with the access, openness, and no-nonsense interviews.

As Jake Tapper, then with Salon.com, wrote in May 1999, “It’s difficult to write about McCain without dealing with the gushing from the fourth estate. Media is as important to John McCain as is he to us.”

Soon after, media profiles of McCain quickly became hagiographic. Reporters burbled when the presidential candidate asked their advice, which is usually unheard of in a presidential race. CBS’s Mike Wallace not only lobbed softballs at McCain for a “60 Minutes” interview, the veteran journalist acknowledged at the time that he’d consider quitting his job to work for the senator’s campaign. U.S. News’s Roger Simon eventually labeled McCain a “folk hero.”

Could all of this happen again? You bet it could.

10:00 PM: Politico’s Mike Allen offers this punditry on Fox News about John McCain, who is currently running fourth behind Huckabee, Romney, and Thompson:

Tonight is a fantastic night for John McCain…. He’s one of the biggest winners of the night. He’s now in a fantastic position. Except for Barack Obama, there’s almost no one you’d rather be tonight than John McCain.

You’ll notice, of course, that McCain finished fourth, behind a guy who barely even tried to campaign, and no one has ever finished fourth in the Republican caucus and gone on to win the GOP nomination.

But no matter; the media has its man.

Yglesias added:

Watching Chris Matthews, I just saw that Tim Russert has already booked John McCain as his featured interviewee for this Sunday. Republican presidential candidate who won the Iowa Caucuses? Well, sorry, you’re out of luck. It’s already been decided that the “real” story out of Iowa is McCain….

Now, I’m a little more inclined to cut Russert some slack on the particulars — Huckabee, Romney, and Thompson have all been on MTP fairly recently — but the point is still well taken.

John McCain may very well be the first fourth-place finisher in nominating history to come out of Iowa with momentum and media adulation.

It stands in stark contrast to Hillary Clinton, whom reporters hate so much, and so unfairly, they can barely contain themselves.

It’s frustrating to watch.

CB–It’s frustrating to watch. Yes it is, but it’s no supprise. the press is the main reason she can’t win. They killed Gore and Kerry, Kerry helped them though.

  • I don’t feel like it’s just charm and winning people over. I think he showed an instinct that a lot of people lack (but it’s for a type of practice that is considered invaluable in some circles), along with a receptivity to certain ideas– ideologically acceptable. Certain people picked him up for these reasons, and he’s had their protection, with the exception of a cool point perhaps, ever since.

    When McCain lost popularity, it was because the blogosphere was getting through to the people and the media. Let’s not let it be forgotten about, and let’s let people know what kind of a two-face he is if people are going to be considering electing him.

  • Respectfully disagree here CB. I watched both MSNBC & CNN last night, and am watching the Situation Room now. The media darling at the moment is Obama. I’ve heard little mention of McCain other than he’s in the lead in NH.

    I suspect that Obama will remain media darling until Tuesday.

  • ***Tonight is a fantastic night for John McCain…. He’s one of the biggest winners of the night. He’s now in a fantastic position. Except for Barack Obama, there’s almost no one you’d rather be tonight than John McCain.***

    In such a horse race, there are usually four positions:

    Win.
    Place.
    Show.
    Glue Factory.

    Mike Allen thinks “Glue Factory” is a fantastic position? Open the window, get the man some fresh air, and take away his party-sized tube of model airplane glue. Too many of the wingnuts still remember McCain’s “Falwell rampstrike;” they may not be enough to give Huckleberry the nomination, but they are enough to keep McCain from getting it….

  • Actually I can see the media getting behind Obama. He is a walking talking good human interest story, almost prewritten, so they don’t have to do any work. That, I think, is one of McCain’s appeals. The whole POW story is essentially guaranteed to attract readers with little effort. No research, no thinking required.

  • The talking heads and the rest of the media have been dragging John McCain out on a regular basis to opine about all matters of policy, and even though they keep attaching the now-meaningless”maverick” label to him, what good has it done? For him or anyone else?

    McCain has not been under a microscope since 2000, and even if the traditional media does not choose to crank up the magnification, it will happen out here in the blogosphere – and as we have seen over the last year, especially, it may force the news divisions, at least, to mention whatever questions arise.

    McCain’s military career ended 40 years ago – some 22 years before today’s newly-minted and extremely energized voters were even born. He’s not a maverick, or a “stright-talker, “unless those are the terms we are now using for “so-old-he-just-says-stupid-things” – “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” being only one – and “can’t remember what he said and when he said it.” He looks tired, he speaks in a sad monotone that will move no one anywhere except to sleep and the contrast will be evident no matter who he is on stage with among the Democrats.

    I think the media’s strange affection for McCain has more to do with the dismal quality of the rest of the GOP field than anything else, and their belief that for everything on one side of the aisle, there must be – has to be – something from the other side that is given equal credibility – even if that makes no sense.

    What I would like to see at the end of all of this, is the clear and unmistakable realization that the traditional media is, in so many ways, and as currently constituted, an impediment to the process. I would dearly love for the election process – from the campaigns forward – to be covered on a C-SPAN-like basis – just show us what is happening, keep your mouths shut, get the hell out of the way and let us come to our own conclusions.

    Fat chance, huh?

  • And of course the media can and will try to rewrite history and tell everyone how McCain the “maverick” always opposed Bush’s terrible handling of the war. You watch.

    Seems like the media is pretty much responsible for most of the bad shit that’s happened over the last 15-20 years. They let the ficticious Iraq/9-11 connection slide, they let the Swiftboaters do their smear job, they let Bush take the whitehouse because they wanted to have a beer with him.

  • Anne, thank you for reminding me about McCain singing “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” as if it was funny.

    That ought to be in some advertisements. Talk about a scary attitude.

  • more than a new President, more than a better Congress, the single biggest positive change for this country would be a whole new and better media rebuilt from the ground up. because the likelihood, success, and reach of the first two is entirely dependent on what the latter tells the general public.

  • I’ve got to go with Zeitgeist on the media thing. No corporate ownership. Candidates having free access to the PUBLIC’S airwaves. Good things like that.

  • On the Dem side, Obama has been the media’s guy from the very beginning. On the GOP side, they’ve flit around a lot, but McCain is their current darling.

  • I’m now wondering if Iowa pressages a Huckabee nomination. The only Repubs fired up yesterday seemed to be evangelical/fundamental Xians for Huck, and that’s who turned out. Contrary to popular opinion, there are plenty of hard-core Xians outside the Bible belt. So if Huckamaniacs are enthusiastic about their guy, and nobody else is excited about the McCains, Romneys, Guilianis and Thompsons, then why wouldn’t Huck continue to rack up a plurality in every state?

    I was thinking we would get a default McCain nomination, but maybe we’ll see a brokered Repub convention where someone not in the original field (Newt, Jeb, Gov. GoodHair, Bloomberg, whoever) is annointed in the backrooms, leading to a record low Republic turnout (Xians stay home, so there) in the general, and real sweeping Dem pickups downticket in the House, Senate, and state and local contests. Go, Huck!

  • I think the idea that McCain won all his help from the media just by asking their advice is implausible. Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton are hardly rude. And the “no-nonsense” interviews have long ago proven to be “full of nonsense” interviews. Besides all that, why would reporters who are concerned about their careers advancing on the merits of their work want to cut off their access to other big politicians by snubbing them for one guy? Why would they fall so hard for him that they diss and dismiss everybody else? The amount of attention John McCain is totally out of proportion to explanations that don’t include room for another influence on the reporters to be working its magic.

  • The punditocracy will knock off the Huckster, and whichever Democrat emerges from the primaries. The ruling elite have pretty much rigged everything for an establishment Rethug. The corporate, tax-cutting greedheads can’t even contemplate two-buck-Huck. He’s the Rethug equivalent of Bill Clinton, also from Arkansas, i.e., white-trailer-trash, only worse. He might even be a Rethug FDR, and that gives them nightmares.

    Here’s hoping the blogosphere knocks off the pundits once and for all.

  • As Atrios noted, Chris Matthews kept saying yesterday that Hillary getting 33% in Iowa is a massive failure, but McCain getting 18% in N.H. would make him the real hero.

    Calling him a moron is an insult to morons.

  • I agree that the MSM fawn waaaay to much over McCain. However, as for this:

    John McCain may very well be the first fourth-place finisher in nominating history to come out of Iowa with momentum

    Isn’t part of the reason that McCain getting 18% in Iowa is a big deal because he didn’t really campaign there and has publically stated his opposition to ethanol subsidies?

    And while I too think Tweety is a moron in general, his stating that McCain’s performance in Iowa is better relatively speaking than Clinton’s is all about the expectations game, right? McCain is not the national frontrunner and was not *ever* expected to do well, much less win, Iowa. Clinton on the other hand still polls #1 nationally among Dems and was expected to do well, if not win, in Iowa.

  • The media went after Hillary like a pack of wolves after her gaffe on the driver’s license issue, which showed her to be vulnerable after all. They just slaughtered her. It may come back to haunt them, though. They can’t do to Obama what they did to Hillary, or Gore, or Kerry. They can’t afford to be labeled racist, and they’ll have to tread lightly.

    There’s no doubt that a McCain/Obama match-up would be the most dramatic, the most newsworthy, the best ratings attraction, by far, and they’ll do their best to see that that happens. And of course, they’ll favor McCain. He’s establishment, a corporatist, and solidly behind making those Bush tax cuts permanent now. Don’t forget, these media pundits are all rich guys. They love those tax cuts. They don’t have to be told what to do by their corporate masters.

    But they are basically limited to adulatory coverage of McCain. They can’t Swiftboat Obama. And that means we have a great shot this time around.

  • The MSM loves McCain because he has the manly military swagger – most of them avoided military service and stilled cowed by anyone who ever wore a uniform (remember the Commander Codpiece nonsense).

    As for the influence of the under 25 voter – even through 2006, they have not voted at anywhere near the levels of other age groups. Let’s see what happens in NH and if young people show up there.

  • COULD IT EVER BE. . . . . .????????????????????????????

    The Great “UNWASHED” American Public is getting off it’s ass, seeing Politicians, Preachers, and THE PRESS for what they are (folks who would have sex with the Devil in Times Square on New Years Eve for 50 cents).

    Think NOT? Look around . . . . what do you smell?

    buckheaddad

    PS This’ll never get through the censors . . . . tooooooooooooo much truth.

  • The reason McCain is popular is because of the media access.

    This unsavory connection between candidate and media needs to exposed to the public. It is completely unethical.

    Mark my words, McCain WILL be the nominee and probably president if we Dems are stupid enough to pick either Clinton or Obama.

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