When two Washington Post reporters asked Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker whether President Obama is a Christian, he answered with a non-answer and harsh words for the media.
“To me, this is a classic example of why people hate Washington and, increasingly, they dislike the press,” Walker said. “The things they care about don’t even remotely come close to what you’re asking about.”
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| ‘I’m giving up the New York Times for Lent.’ |
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Walker could have left his critique at that, but he didn’t. Instead, his campaign milked the moment for money and publicity.
The Friends of Scott Walker PAC, his gubernatorial committee, sent out a fundraising email with the subject line “Gotcha Journalism,” and Walker capitalized further with an op-ed in USA Today.
“I will always choose to focus on what matters to the American people, not what matters to the media,” Walker wrote.
Other likely candidates for president, seeking approval from the base and publicity from a sometimes narcissistic press, have jumped on the anti-media bandwagon.
“I’m giving up the New York Times for Lent,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told a crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference, following a few unflattering stories about Christie by the publication. The conservative crowd ate it up.
The strategy has become something of a cherished tradition in politics: candidates portraying the news media as their archenemy, hoping to publicly combat negative stories and carve out reputations as Washington outsiders in the process.
“I love to bash the media all the time,” John McCain told a town hall audience in 2008, to appreciative laughter.
His running mate, Sarah Palin, famously railed against the “gotcha” question, as in response to her interview with Katie Couric, during which Couric asked Palin which newspapers she read. The line became one of Palin’s signatures, but it had been coined years earlier by George W. Bush, in 1999, when he derided the “Washington game of gotcha” after being asked about his past cocaine use.
Bashing the media was as much in fashion during the 2012 presidential campaign, when Republican candidates used the tactic to defend against negative coverage and portray themselves as political outsiders.
“The media for some reason wants to make this a two-man race all the time, when every time they make it a two-man race it turned out to be the wrong two people,” Rick Santorum said on MSNBC in January 2012.
The quintessential anti-media moment of the election, however, came when CNN’s John King began a Republican debate with a question for Newt Gingrich about statements made by his second wife, Marianne, alleging Gingrich had asked for an open marriage. Gingrich lashed out at King in response.
“I think the destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office,” Gingrich said.
That indignant response won Gingrich cheers and applause from the audience, and gave Gingrich a boost in the polls when he might otherwise have been dragged down by scandal.
Calling out the media can be a net positive for Republicans, as it was for Gingrich, “as long as you don’t go over the top,” said Sean Spicer, chief strategist at the Republican National Committee.
“There’s always a fundraising appeal that candidates can make, because among conservatives, bashing the media is a time-proven success,” Spicer said. “But there really is a double standard, and it’s worth reminding journalists once in a while that we’re keeping an eye on this.”
