Bad campaign journalism can be bad in a lot of different ways. It can tell us, based on this or that poll, that there are “top tier” candidates deserving our attention. It can focus on “gaffes” and advertising instead of the issues. It almost always refuses to acknowledge the existence of candidates not affiliated with the two major parties.
But a high-profile journalist declaring that a Democratic candidate running a competitive race against a heavily favored Republican in a very “red” state has disqualified herself? This might be a new one.
But that’s exactly what NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd did on Friday (10/11/14). The candidate in question is Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Democrat running for the Senate in Kentucky against veteran Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell. Polls have been showing Grimes just a few points behind, which has made it one of the most closely watched races in the current election cycle.
But the day before, during an interview with the editorial board of the Louisville Courier-Journal, Grimes refused to say whether or not she had voted for Barack Obama. National pundits like Todd treated this as a stunning development; the Morning Joe panel was flabbergasted by the gaffe, with Todd chiming in to say this:
Is she ever going to answer a tough question on anything? You wanna be a US senator? If you can’t find a way to stand behind your party’s president…. You can disagree with him, but you can’t answer a basic question, and you come across looking that ridiculous? I think she disqualified herself. I really do.
Now, to be clear, she did not deny the existence of climate change or anything else of similar consequence. The “problem” here is that she did what every seasoned political operative would tell you she needed to do: create some distance between herself and a rather unpopular president. (Obama got a 35 percent approval rating in Kentucky in a Gallup poll released earlier this year.) Her failure to adequately perform this ritual is what shocked and dismayed the pundits.
You might recall that when Todd’s name was seriously floated for the Meet the Press gig, he got a hearty endorsement from the Beltway gossip Mike Allen of Politico (8/11/14), who praised Todd as “political obsessive” whose “love of the game” would “restore passion and insider cred” to NBC.
He’s living up to the hype.
Todd is nothing but an attention grabber. And that’s all NBC wants. No national TV network, not even PBS, has news credibility anymore. Unless the news is Myley, Biber, or Beyonce.
Chuck Todd obviously supports a Republican Senator for reelection who among other things denies global warming, opposes background checks for gun purchasers, and wants to eliminate medical insurance under the Affordable Care Act for half a million people in his home state of Kentucky.
Todd claims Mitch McConnell’s opponent, Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, has disqualified herself by not expressing support for President Obama.
What about other Democrats who no longer support Obama? In the latest Gallup pole (for the week of October 6-12), 55% of respondents disapproved of the way Obama is handing his job. Are the Democrats among them disqualified to vote?
It has become clear that Chuck Todd himself is utterly unqualified to be the new host of NBC’s Meet the Press.
The ReNumblican’s have so lost touch with reality, that they actually think they are in the forefront, and are doing their best to re-invent it. To that end, the Minitrue jabbernuts are pulling out their best “so freaking stupid it has to be true” trips. Make it so over the top, and so freaking stupid that people will think “It has to be true, nobody would like like that”.
Well people, as one person put it so well a few years back; “We don’t need another TEA party, we need to wake up and smell the coffee.”
I think Chuck Todd new exactly what he was doing–currying favor with the Republican establishment. What good this will do him remains to be seen.
But his name is Chuck Todd!! it’s so professional and glitzy!!!
There you go again Padremellryn. Let me remind you of the cite of Orwell I mentioned to you once before: the worst metaphor is still better than the cliche. [In fairness I have noticed a better spark in your imagery since I presume you read my cite before.]
First of all, shame on Grimes for not defending her party’s president, she could have added a bit of complaint without totally denying her position. Why is this such a big deal anyway, I recall that NONE, absolutely NONE of the candidates during either Bush’s terms wanted them near them.
President Obama may have not done everything that we expected or thought he would do, but still he his miles and miles better than any Republican is or will be.
DON’T LET KOCH’S MONEY DO THE TALKING, FIGHT BACK. Don’t vote for a Republican under any condition.
There you go again Padremellryn. Let me remind you of the cite of Orwell I mentioned to you once before: the worst metaphor is still better than the cliche. [In fairness I have noticed a better spark in your imagery since I presume you read my cite before.]
Don’t pat your self on the back, I have read 1984 several times, and have it on Audible Books, as well as the Kindle Version, and in Hardcopy (ask someone about the time Kindle decided that they had the right to send every ones copy of the book down the memory hole). The truth is I like the Audible best, but I also have had it book marked several times over the years (though those tend to fail more often).
I have long referred to the Lame Stream Media as “the Minitrue”, particularly during the Bushivites Reign because it was so apt; only a tiny portion of the whole story would true, usually they would get the day they were reporting something right. From there it made little difference what was said before, as they would pull the “We are at war with ……, We have always been at war with…..”
However, the truth be told, I really should have referred to the book by Joseph Heller (of Catch 22 fame), “Good as Gold” in which he does for the political scene, what he did for the military in Catch 22, lays all of the foolish and insipid follies bare; E.g. “Bruce (Gold) found out that senator so and so was guilty of (Fill in the blank) when he read the mornings headlines “Senator says there is no truth to the rumor that he was (fill in the blank). Worth getting and reading.