In the days leading up to Michigan’s Republican presidential primary, voters made it abundantly clear that the economy and job growth were their top concerns, and looked to the candidates for some answers. John McCain told voters that the manufacturing jobs Michigan lost are, regrettably, gone for good, but he wants to try to figure out how to help those workers make the transition to new jobs. Mitt Romney said that was a defeatist attitude, and he’d fight to get those jobs back.
Who was right? Well, it’s pretty obvious McCain’s candid approach was the more honest one (though he was more than a little vague on how he’d help the unemployed). But it’s been striking to see just how irritated the media is about the success of Romney’s pandering.
The AP’s Ron Fournier, one of the more influential voices in the political media establishment, wrote, “The man who spoke hard truths to Michigan lost…. The Arizona senator had the temerity to tell voters that a candidate who says traditional auto manufacturing jobs ‘are coming back is either naive or is not talking straight with the people of Michigan and America.'” Fournier added that Romney “told voters what he thought they wanted to hear.”
Ana Marie Cox explained today that the results in Michigan apparently made the political press corps, collectively, angry.
In Michigan, the frustration over Romney’s complete disingeniousness [sic] about “bringing your jobs back” conjured a rare degree of camaraderie [among reporters], and we caucused together and came up with a list of questions that we agreed to ask no matter who got called on at the next press conference. For instance: “If Bain Capital was going to invest in the auto industry, what segment would it invest in, and how would that help Michigan?” Salon’s Mike Madden actually got that in, but it elicited a non-answer: “I’ve been out of the private sector too long to advise people on that kind of thing.” In other words, his experience in the private sector is relevant, until he’s called upon to use it.
This really is puzzling. As Ezra put it, “Seriously, the press was driven over the edge by a presidential candidate promising to bring jobs back? Give me a break.”
Was Romney pandering? Of course. Was his position baseless? Absolutely. Were his assurances to voters based on reality? Not even a little.
But even I’m not naive enough to find this particularly offensive. A presidential candidate told a state with a struggling economy that he’d fight for every job. Be still my heart. It’s not as if presidential candidates haven’t been using the exact same line since, I don’t know, the dawn of time.
So, why would reporters literally team up in opposition to Romney’s pandering? Ezra argues it’s due to “the press corps’ white-hot hatred for the guy.”
Romney’s jobs rhetoric is stupid. But it’s a common campaign lie, and one the press never, ever rebels against. They hate Romney, though, and so he’s getting an uncommon level of scrutiny. Read, for instance, this bizarre dust-up with Romney over lobbyists. Romney said he won’t let lobbyists run his campaign. The press browbeat him on the language, saying lobbyists do run his campaign. Romney insisted that his campaign manager is no lobbyist. There’s video of this exchange, and the contempt on the part of the journalist is really fascinating to watch. But check out the resulting news story. The article is vicious to Romney’s claims, showing that journalists can, when so moved, easily identify prevarication.
Quite right. Indeed, the role of lobbyists in candidates’ campaigns is actually a terrific example. John McCain’s website tells visitors, “Too often the special interest lobbyists with the fattest wallets and best access carry the day.” It sounds like a compelling sentiment from a one-time reformer, and might even be impressive, if it weren’t wildly disingenuous. McCain actually has “more lobbyists working on his staff or as advisers than any of his competitors,” in either party, including having a lobbyist as his campaign manager. Does the rhetoric match the reality? Not even a little.
McCain claims to decry the power and influence of lobbyists are spectacularly misleading, but political reporters love McCain. Romney’s claims about lobbyists and his campaign are certainly far from true, but they’re certainly no worse than McCain’s. One gets a pass, the other gets excoriated.
I keep wondering if we’ll reach a point at which political reporters realize they’ve been caught — they go far too easy on McCain, and everyone’s noticed — and start to compensate in the other direction. They should want to prove themselves (“Everyone thinks we’re giving McCain a pass? Well, I’ll show them…”) in order to bolster their own credibility.
But I’ve been waiting for this development for nine years. It’s just not going to happen, is it?