GOP Media Manipulation.

After a long week of discussion, argument and contemplation about the conventions and the developing race for the presidency, I felt the need for a prolonged burst of relaxation in order to recenter myself. Of course that ended up being wishful thinking, as just about everywhere I went people wanted to talk about what's been happening. Overwhelmingly I encountered varying degrees of disgust and shock over John McCain's decision to select Sarah Palin as his running mate. Additionally there were quite a few that I talked to that were appalled by the way the media has salivated over her, building her up into a social phenomenon and a singular event. That was ironic, given the Right's insistence that the press is against her.

It seems that all the GOP has had to do over the last week is to keep Palin sequestered so that her legend can grow without interference from critical analysis. Her handlers have been clear that she will meet the media whenever "she is ready". I find that particularly ironic given their strenuous and insistent claims that Palin is experienced and ready for the national political stage. If that is their sincere belief, I wonder why they don't release her from their imposition of silence. They should be anxious for Palin to have the opportunity to reveal her positions and attitudes regarding the issues that confront the nation in this dark hour. Given the acid tongue that she unleashed at the Convention, she should be well-prepared and anxious to go.

But exactly the opposite seems to be the case. McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis has made his feelings about this situation very clear:

"Why would we want to throw Sarah Palin into a cycle of piranhas called the news media that have nothing better to ask questions about than her personal life and her children? So until at which point in time we feel like the news media is going to treat her with some level of respect and deference*, I think it would be foolhardy to put her out into that kind of environment."



That seems to me to be a transparent strategy aimed at getting the media to go easy on her. Yet we are told time and again that she is just as effective in extemporaneous debate as she is in front of a teleprompter. What does this self-proclaimed "pit bull" have to lose?

I would suggest that the worst thing that can happen to the spectacle of "Palin-mania" is for the American Public to discover who she really is. She is self-serving, hugely ambitious, and a "skilled politician"- when it comes to saying what her "base" wants to hear. The problem with that is the message that McCain delivered last week. He says he wants to encourage a bipartisan approach to governance in Washington DC. This approach is clearly meant to appeal to independent and undecided voters. My impression is that many within that segment of the populace are going to be put off by Palin's style, her extreme views, and her misrepresentation of her record in Alaska. It's better for the GOP to let her profile build itself while she is a novelty.

I've repeatedly stressed the fact that the Republicans are much better than the Democrats about "staying on message". They have built a well-defined structure that imposes discipline and disseminates talking points. They are desperately trying to frame the conversation before it even begins. We are more than a week past the point that Palin was announced as a vice-presidential nominee, and yet the GOP has not allowed one single question to be asked of her. I find that amazing. They are billing her as the future of their party, and yet she still hasn't faced a single test. The fact that Republicans are that anxious to find a figure within their party that can excite them demonstrates a level of desperation that I see as a bit dangerous.


* Yes... they actually used the word "deference". That made me laugh too.