USA Today depicts Ted Cruz announcing his bid for the presidency.
In corporate media, Democrats tend to run as centrists and lose as leftists. As I noted way back in the first Bush administration (Extra!, 9/92):
When the “pragmatists” lose badly with their centrist approach, they are repainted after the fact as radicals, so the strategy of tilting to the right can be tried again and again.
Republicans have a similar media trope, but theirs works a little differently: GOP candidates run as rightists and lose as centrists.
You see this in coverage of Sen. Ted Cruz’s declaration that he was running for the Republican presidential nomination. Here’s USA Today‘s Catalina Camia and David Jackson (3/22/15):
He repeatedly criticizes the “mushy middle” — as reflected by the GOP’s last two presidential nominees Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain — and denounces his fellow Republicans for failing to make bold distinctions with Democrats. “It’s a failed electoral strategy,” Cruz has said.
Or CBS‘s Jake Miller (3/23/15):
He’s warned Republicans against trusting the establishment to pick winners. Pointing to losses by 2008 nominee Sen. John McCain and 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, Cruz has urged the GOP to nominate a strong conservative or risk defeat for the third consecutive time.
The Washington Post‘s image of Ted Cruz at Liberty University.
Or the Washington Post‘s Dan Balz (3/23/15):
He has argued that the party failed to win the White House not because it has become too conservative but because Republicans have nominated politicians who were not conservative enough, who could not carry the message of today’s conservatism with energy, optimism and authenticity.
Frustrated by the campaigns of Mitt Romney in 2012 and John McCain in 2008, many conservatives agree.
None of these stories challenge the notion that McCain and Romney lost because they were “not conservative enough.” McCain’s mythical “maverick” status was mainly justified by a brief period after his unsuccessful 2000 bid for the Republican presidential nomination when he was at odds with the administration of his victorious rival. As Peter Hart (Extra!, 7/08) wrote in 2008:
Before the 2000 campaign, McCain was consistently among the party’s most conservative members. In the 107th Congress (2001-02), McCain was the sixth most liberal Republican senator, according to the VoteView statistical analysis of voting patterns. In the next congressional session, he was the fourth-most conservative.
And he’s more or less stayed there since. According to VoteView, McCain’s voting record in 2005-06 made him the second-most conservative senator in the 109th Congress, and the eighth-most conservative in the 110th Senate. Outside of McCain’s brief tack to the middle, his overall voting record makes him a reliable member of his party’s caucus.
As for Romney, his reputation as a “moderate” was largely based on his having implemented as governor of Massachusetts a healthcare program inspired by the Heritage Foundation.
Both McCain and Romney ran as conservatives with conservative platforms–and lost. By accepting Cruz’s characterization of them as moderates who lost because of their moderation, media endorse his argument that the Republican Party’s path to success takes a sharp right turn.
