Opinion
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Is the Post's campaign to 'Macaca' McDonnell sputtering?
By: Michael Barone
Senior Political Analyst
09/07/09 2:00 PM EDT
In my previous blogposts on the Washington Post news pages’ campaign to “Macaca” Virginia Republican governor nominee Bob McDonnell by running story after story on McDonnell’s 1989 Regent University thesis—Republican Governors Association operative Nick Ayers has noted 34 such pieces, including articles, blogposts, cartoons, editorials and on-line chats—I have purposely refrained from citing opinion articles, since after all opinion writers can legitimately try to influence readers and readers are on notice that this is so.
But I’ll make an exception here for Metro columnist Robert McCartney’s Sunday analysis in which he argues, persuasively, that the McDonnell thesis isn’t likely to move many voters to support Democratic nominee Creigh Deeds. McCartney makes the intelligent points (a) that a governor’s power to impose his lifestyle preferences on voters is limited and (b) that Deeds has not staked out a central issue in his campaign.
Some conservative readers may umbrage at this as advice to the Deeds campaign (pretty good advice, I’d say), but there’s nothing wrong with an opinion columnist providing candidates with free advice.
But I also take this column as advice to the Post’s news reporters, along these lines: your attempt to “Macaca” Bob McDonnell is sputtering, and if you want to elect Deeds you need to take a different tack—and you need some help from Deeds himself. Once again, that sounds like pretty good advice.
But I’ll make an exception here for Metro columnist Robert McCartney’s Sunday analysis in which he argues, persuasively, that the McDonnell thesis isn’t likely to move many voters to support Democratic nominee Creigh Deeds. McCartney makes the intelligent points (a) that a governor’s power to impose his lifestyle preferences on voters is limited and (b) that Deeds has not staked out a central issue in his campaign.
Some conservative readers may umbrage at this as advice to the Deeds campaign (pretty good advice, I’d say), but there’s nothing wrong with an opinion columnist providing candidates with free advice.
But I also take this column as advice to the Post’s news reporters, along these lines: your attempt to “Macaca” Bob McDonnell is sputtering, and if you want to elect Deeds you need to take a different tack—and you need some help from Deeds himself. Once again, that sounds like pretty good advice.
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