More interested in solving the mainstream media issue than in talking to conservatives?
Background: Matt Lewis noted with no little bemusement that some folks working for Team Romney had a conference call where folks from organizations from the table below were invited and were given the opportunity to ask questions, while “Townhall.com, HotAir, Daily Caller, Washington Examiner, National Review, Weekly Standard, American Spectator, or Washington Times” got left out in the cold. Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air was willing enough to note that they didn’t give an invite… and I’ll chime in that – as far as I know – neither did RedState. Which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, given that Team Romney apparently… well. I will be nice.
But never mind that. Conference calls are often themselves tools of a Lower power, anyway. Instead, let’s look again at who got invited, and who got to ask Team Romney questions:
| John Dickerson | CBS / Slate | Romney’s Achilles’ Heel |
| Mark Halperin | Time | |
| Lloyd Grove | The Daily Beast | South Carolina’s Orgy of Scandals |
| Evan McMorris-Santoro | Talking Points Memo | One Email Deleter Endorses Another In New Hampshire |
| David Corn | Mother Jones | Hey GOP 2012ers: You Lie!* |
| Phil Rucker | Washington Bob McDonnell’s Thesis | As GOP celebrates victories, ideological battles between moderates and conservatives remain |
I hope that my next statement is not precisely a surprise: these people are not Mitt Romney’s friends. They’re not friends of the GOP, either – the closest one to that would be Mark Halperin, and he’s neutral at best. Half of the media institutions that they work for would respond to a Republican on fire by throwing sodium at him (or, preferably, her). Which means, among other things, that these people will not help Mitt Romney acquire more primary votes from Republicans and conservatives. It’s foolish to think that any one of the media institutions listed above will break for the Republican in the general election, of course; but it’s downright insane to think that the average GOP primary voter will give a tinker’s dam one way or the other about how, say, The Daily Beast treats Romney. Heck, a screaming match between Romney and the Online Left – or better yet, the former hauling off and smacking a representative of the latter – would only help the former Governor.
[UPDATE] Jazz Shaw got Team Romney to respond in a somewhat, ah, nuanced fashion: they’re falling back on the old 2008 standby of “We had a queue!” Ah, yes, the queue. Let me just save time, on the off chance that somebody from the Romney campaign wants to push back here, too: the queue is the Romney campaign’s problem. Media outlets like TPM should not have been invited to Team Romney’s conference call in the first place. Because they hate us, and will take the opportunity given to them by this queue to ask slanted and poisonous questions.
I put up a list that touches on this topic and others, in fact: I recommend that people peruse it.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
*You will have to forgive the link via Anonymouse: it is a matter of slight personal pride to me that Mother Jones personally blocks my IP address. I’m not even entirely certain why: it’s not like the publication has ever been large enough to be worth me hitting it constantly.
Why would a “Republican” even TALK to Mother Jones?! They don’t even POSE as neutral!
There’s a cartoon going ’round in which Romney proposes to change his first name to “Not” to satisfy Republican candidate preferences.
If he’s going to keep this up, he’d better go whole hog and change his whole name to “Not Obama”. That would be the only reason to vote for anybody approved by that crowd, and a lot of people would find the distinction too thin to bother leaving home that day — me, for instance.
It’s truly astounding to me that nobody sees why Gingrich’s numbers are rising. At the very least, you don’t see him prostrate on the sidewalk at 620 Eighth, imploring “Please Mr. Sulzberger may I have some good copy?”
Regards,
Ric
If the man has judgment this poor in dealing with American journalists who merely despise him and want his left-wing opponent to win the presidency, what kind of decisions do you think he’ll make in dealing with the leaders of countries that actually want to defeat and destroy the United States?
Still, he isn’t Obama, and in the event that he’s the Republican nominee I’ll vote for him … without much enthusiasm. But I’m not looking forward to his “THWACK! Thank you sir! May I have another!” mode of dealing with his opposition.
The someone on Mother Jones mention me. I’d link you to the article, but your IP banned (which is awesome by-the-way).
1. Do we have a list of all of the invites from the Romney campaign?
2. The Romney campaign has said that on the conference call, everyone who wanted to ask a question had their question answered. This should be easy to check. Were there any right bloggers on the call and did they attempt to ask a question?