{"id":14133,"date":"2008-01-04T16:10:05","date_gmt":"2008-01-04T21:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14133.html"},"modified":"2008-01-04T16:10:05","modified_gmt":"2008-01-04T21:10:05","slug":"has-the-media-picked-its-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/has-the-media-picked-its-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Has the media picked its man?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

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.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

Could all of this happen again? You bet it could<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You’ll notice, of course, that McCain finished fourth<\/i>, 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.<\/p>\n

But no matter; the media has its man.
\n
\nYglesias added<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

It stands in stark contrast to Hillary Clinton, whom reporters hate so much<\/a>, and so unfairly, they can barely contain themselves.<\/p>\n

It’s frustrating to watch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}