Political Animal
Blog
When we talk about prominent national figures who duck the Sunday morning public-affairs shows, we tend to think of politicians who struggle with basic questions. Sarah Palin, for example, avoided all of the Sunday shows after being named to the 2008 ticket.
But this year, it’s the allegedly-competent Republican who’s avoiding the questions. Fox News’ Chris Wallace had this message to viewers yesterday morning:
For those who can’t watch clips online, the “Fox News Sunday” host explained after interviewing Rick Perry, “With Governor Perry’s appearance, we have now interviewed all the major Republican candidates in our 2012 one-on-one series — except Mitt Romney. He has not appeared on this program or any Sunday talk show since March of 2010. We invited Governor Romney again this week, but his campaign says he’s still not ready to sit down for an interview.”
At first blush, this is rather surprising. Romney is supposed to be the smart one in the GOP field, able to answer questions in complete sentences and with passable grammar. He should be the last Republican candidate to be afraid of the Sunday shows.
But therein lies the rub: Romney largely presents the appearance of intellectual chops, which are exaggerated by the limits of his GOP rivals. He thrives in debates because his answers must be brief and lacking in details and depth. Romney avoids lengthy press conferences, and prefers to interact with news organizations by publishing op-eds written by his staff.
Michael Calderone added that the Romney campaign hopes to restrict “unguarded moments” with reporters, in part because the candidate no longer finds it necessary — he’s already well known and is positioned as the likely Republican nominee.
But as Wallace demonstrated yesterday, media outlets can get testy when they feel like they’re being ignored.
Facebook
Twitter
stormskies on October 31, 2011 10:24 AM:
This is what happens when you run a campaign on smoke and mirrors, a campaign rooted in duplicity
c u n d gulag on October 31, 2011 10:24 AM:
Well, if you were the Emperor, and everyone thought you had really nice clothes, would YOU want to go on TV and expose your wrinkled ol' butt and "Lil' Mitt 'n his ding-dongs" for everyone to see and laugh at?
Why would you want to "remove all doubt?"
walt on October 31, 2011 10:27 AM:
Gee, couldn't they call John McCain instead? Here's someone who is notoriously ignorant about his own field of expertise, military affairs, and he gets treated as the Oracle of McLean.
Romney has a frontrunner's strategy, which is to cruise on auto-pilot by limiting potential errors and unwelcome attention. He didn't invent this strategy. There's no one else in the field who's even remotely plausible to be the GOP nominee except Jon Huntsman, and he's the next iteration of the technocratic problem-solver.
As for Chris Wallace, boo hoo.
Ron Byers on October 31, 2011 10:27 AM:
You have to be some real Republican dufus when you won't even appear on Fox News.
Nobody in Presidential history has been as lucky at drawing opponents as Barack Obama. He has only been involved in two really difficult races. The first he lost and the second against Hillary Clinton he won. All the rest have been walkovers.
Josef K on October 31, 2011 10:39 AM:
Romney largely rests the appearance of intellectual chops, which are exaggerated by the limits of his GOP rivals.
I'd have said "the blindly obvious stupidity of his GOP rivals". But then, I'm a little biased.
DAY on October 31, 2011 10:47 AM:
After his daddy had those uncomfortable Vietnam remarks during his run for the presidency, he took little Mitt on his knee, and said, "Son, always keep your head below the parapet."
sick-n-effn-tired. on October 31, 2011 11:28 AM:
I think john Stewart nailed it in last Thursday's show .
All mitt has to do is step back and let the clown car go after each other . He ends up looking presidential.
Scared Mittless indeed
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-october-27-2011/indecision-2012---scared-mittless
tanstaafl on October 31, 2011 12:01 PM:
My question is why does George Will still have a column and why does anyone pay attention to anything he says even when they more or less agree with his main point. Will's incoherent writing style and complete disregard for the facts should have led to his retirement decades ago.
In addition to the ridiculous dig at Obama that Benen pointed out, which Will did nothing to try to support or even explain, and which had nothing at all to do with the point of his column, there is the following paragraph:
"Every day, 10,000 baby boomers become eligible for Social Security and Medicare, from which they will receive, on average, $1 million of benefits ($550,000 from the former, $450,000 from the latter). Who expects difficult reforms from Romney, whose twists on ethanol make a policy pretzel?"
George Will never even tries to explain what baby boomers becoming eligible for Social Security and Medicare have to do with anything. That paragraph is a complete non-sequitor that should leave anyone trying to follow Will's argument scratching their head and saying "Huh?"
tanstaafl on October 31, 2011 12:05 PM:
I am sorry, my last comment went in the wrong Romney thread.
I meant it for yesterday's thread (yeah, I am slow sometimes) about George Will's lament about Romney's lack of convictions.
booch221 on October 31, 2011 12:41 PM:
...the Romney campaign hopes to restrict "unguarded moments" with reporters...
If he appeared on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace might show film clips of Mitten's many flip-flops. It would be devastating.
Anonymous At Work on October 31, 2011 1:20 PM:
The problem would be if Chris Wallace attempted to pin Romney down on various positions near-and-dear to the base but that were not held by the majority of Americans. Instant TV ad material.
card recovery download on November 01, 2011 4:12 AM:
Well; that’s true managing time after getting to much merged in politics is quite difficult; anyways Sundays shows are still on main focus.
card recovery download
http://www.usbdrivedatarecovery.com