“Aiding And Abetting”: How The Press Helped Mitt Romney Reinvent Himself
Analyzing the presidential campaign in the wake of the first debate, Time’s Mark Halperin wrote on October 10 that Mitt Romney’s sudden “rush to the center” politically had emerged as the key topic – “the central tactical issue”– for the Barack Obama’s team to address. Halperin stressed it would be a challenge for Democrats because the Romney’s campaign’s “brazen chutzpah knows no bounds.”
How odd. At the first debate Romney had so brashly reinvented himself by shifting his position on taxation, immigration and health care away from the Republican Party, that the onus was on Obama to counter Romney’s slick maneuver. In other words, Romney’s flip-flops, according to Halperin, were a major problem for the Obama campaign, not for the Republican who late in the game unveiled a new political persona. (Farewell “severely conservative.”)
It’s also telling that on October 10, Halperin considered Romney’s makeover into a moderate to be the campaign’s dominant issue. Yet one week earlier on the night of the first debate when Halperin graded both participants, the pundit made no reference to Romney’s “rush to the center.” In real time, Halperin heaped praise on Romney’s style “(Started strong, level, and unrattled — and strengthened as he went along”) as well as his substance (“He clearly studied hard.”)
Final grade, Romney: A-
Between the first debate and October 10, Romney’s brazen flip-flops were not subject to any serious critique from Time’s political team. What coverage Romney received for altering his campaign positions (aka his “tack toward the political center“) mostly revolved around how conservative activists reacted to Romney’s sudden embrace of moderate rhetoric. (They’re totally fine with it.) Time was much less interested in what the about-faces said about Romney’s candidacy, his character or what his presidency might look like.
The fact that the Republican candidate had radically altered his positions on core domestic issues just one month before Election Day was not treated as a campaign evolution that reflected poorly on Romney. To the contrary, it was largely portrayed as a savvy move by the Republican.
Time’s soft peddling of Romney’s broad reinvention was typical of how the Beltway press has politely covered the candidate’s latest chameleon turn.
Politicians once flip-flopped at their own risk knowing the price they’d likely pay from the hypocrisy-sensitive press corps. Indeed, there was a time when it meant something if a candidate made it clear he didn’t believe what he had been saying on the campaign trial, and the press held that revelation against the candidate. Recall that Al Gore was hammered in the press in 2000 as a politician without any core convictions. And George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign was largely built around calling Sen. John Kerry a flip-flopper; a tag that stuck thanks in part to the press coverage.
But this campaign Romney has mostly skated through his latest reincarnation, as pundits marvel at the political ease and wisdom of his flip-flops: “Crafty” announced The Daily Beast. At BuzzFeed, Blake Zeff suggested Romney had bet his entire campaign on the hope that “the era of the flip-flop as untenable, campaign-ending, non-starter is over.” It if is, Romney has the press to thank.
Just look at how his jarring reversals have been watered down in recent days [emphasis added]:
• “Romney ditched that strategy and repeatedly softened the ideological contrasts with Obama.” [Daily Beast]
• “Romney polished the rough edges” [Los Angeles Times]
• “Behind the new efforts by the Romney campaign to soften his conservative edges” [New York Times]
• “It also meant altering or softening his positions on a handful of bedrock issues.” (BuzzFeed)
Romney abandoning the hard-right persona he crafted and campaigned on for the last four years is ‘softening the edges’? Besides, Romney’s maneuver is no big deal, goes the media narrative, because candidates always shift their beliefs for the general election.
From the Washington Post:
Of course, a second-half pivot is a time-honored maneuver in the political playbook. In a primary campaign, a candidate must play to the passions of the base; as he moves toward the general election, the sensibilities of swing voters become paramount.
Right. But we’re not talking about a “time honored” primary-to-general election pivot happening now. We’re talking about a candidate who was trailing in the polls and who decided in October to reinvent himself. That’s not the norm in American politics, although the press has tried to pretend it is. Note that when Obama did reverse his position on the issue gay marriage in May, he offered a public, detailed explanation as to why. Not Romney. He doesn’t bother to explain his campaign 180s and the press doesn’t seem care.
They’re too busy admiring the “chutzpah,” as Halperin called it.
These tweets last week from Politico reporter Ben White helped capture the media’s admiration for Romney’s flip-flops:
Very soon the Mitt Romney who ran in the primaries will be entirely erased. In his place will be a moderate who may win.
— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) October 10, 2012
Want to know why Romney is softening on abortion? Married moms in swing states, per Bloomberg poll. bloom.bg/VMtxfX
— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) October 10, 2012
Dismiss it as etch-a-sketch if you will but the Romney reinvention is brilliant politics
— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) October 10, 2012
See? Romney’s reinvention, his decision to alter his views on the central issues of the campaign weeks before Election Day, is “brilliant.” The brash flip-flopping doesn’t reflect poorly on the candidate or suggest that Romney’s unsure, or unprincipled, about his positions. Instead, it signals savvy politics and “crafty” campaigning.
For the final push of this campaign Mitt Romney is trying to reinvent himself as a moderate, less-scary Republican. And the press is helping him at every turn.
By: Eric Boehlert, Media Matters, October 16, 2012
“Uncle Will At Your Service”: Marriott Is Mainstay For The Romney campaign
On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney incessantly talks about his “five points” to get the country moving again, but the only points anyone traveling with the GOP nominee is interested in are Marriott points.
The candidate has made the hotel chain the semi-official innkeeper of his presidential campaign. From Iowa to Ohio to New York City, Romney has wheeled his carry-on bag into Marriott lobbies and passed the omnipresent portrait of J. Willard Marriott and his son, John Willard “Bill” Marriott Jr. — a Romney contemporary, fellow Mormon scion and, along with his brother, a donor of more than $1 million to the Republican’s effort.
The Romneys and Marriotts go way back. J. Willard was a dear friend of Mitt’s father, George, with whom he sold tamales in Washington during the Depression Era. Forty years later, J. Willard Marriott asked his namesake Willard Mitt Romney, a young consultant with Bain & Co., to help with his Roy Rogers fast-food chain. But Bain prevented those at the firm from working for any client who employed their chief competitor, McKinsey & Co., which Marriott did. Or from working in a peripheral part of the business, which Roy Rogers was.
Romney had to call up “Uncle Will” — as he called him — to decline the work, according to Mike Farmer, who accompanied Romney on the sales trip.
But Romney, who once sat on the Marriott board, has stayed loyal to the Marriott empire. And now so has the phalanx of campaign operatives, television producers, camera operators and reporters, checking in behind the candidate with corporate cards in hand. (On Sunday, the Obama campaign press corp was also camped out at a Courtyard Marriott in Williamsburg.)
“It’s our home away from home,” said Rick Gorka, a spokesman for the Romney campaign. “We’ve converted a lot of press.”
To build brand loyalty and try to beat the competition, Marriott rewards guests with lodging’s version of frequent flyer miles for each stay. A steady accumulation of Marriott points bestows first silver, then gold and finally platinum status, each precious metal coming with its own precious perks.
“I’m platinum,” Gorka said proudly as he swirled a large glass of bourbon on the back of the press plane. Having spent at least 150 nights in Marriott hotels since January and racked up a half-million points, he spoke reverentially about the “Taste of Platinum” program. He became almost misty discussing the time the West Palm Beach Marriott upgraded him to a two-bedroom condo with balcony, hot tub, washer and dryer. He said he daydreamed about a prolonged, free stay in a perhaps tropical destination with his girlfriend, who eagerly monitored his point total back home. “Points,” he said, “are gold for us.”
On his way back toward the front of the plane, Gorka hovered over the aqua-blue screen of a reporter’s laptop. She was gazing at the crystalline waters surrounding Marriott’s Scrub Island Resort, Spa & Marina in the Virgin Islands. “It’s a new Marriott, autograph collection” she explained to Gorka. “It’s on a private island, 52 rooms on the marina. It looks amazing.”
“Let me know if you go,” Gorka said.
The day had started, as so many of them do, with Romney staffers and Romney press corps members climbing out of their Marriott mattresses and picking at eggs in a private breakfast room off the lobby, this time of the Columbus Airport Marriott. One of the camera crew interrupted the breakfast of one of the embedded television reporters to ask, “Are you triple platinum now?”
“Oh, yeah,” she responded matter of factly. “I, like, lived in the Marriott New Hampshire. I have 200 free nights.”
It came time to board the bus, and a circle of cameramen discussed the finer points of Marriott points, saying things like “mega bonus.”
“Have you enrolled in the platinum challenge?” one asked this reporter, who had a lowly silver status. He described an alchemy by which every two-night stay results in a free night in another Marriott. As long as it isn’t too high end, interjected a colleague, “Only category three or four, not five.”
The press then loaded onto the bus, following Romney as he campaigned around the state. Then they boarded the plane, flew with him to Boston and boarded another bus to bring them to their hotels. As the coach rolled toward the entrance of the Courtyard Marriott in Waltham, one of the embedded network producers shouted to no one in particular: “Why don’t we stay at the Westin out here? Why does the Marriott own our souls?”
By: Jason Horowitz, The Washington Post, October 14, 2012
“Zing” Went The Strings Of His Heart: Mitt Romney Learning The Lessons Of Prior Debates Too Well
The other day, The New York Times reported that in their debate preparations, “Mr. Romney’s team has concluded that debates are about creating moments and has equipped him with a series of zingers that he has memorized and has been practicing on aides since August.” This then became the subject of predictable ridicule (check out #romneyzingers or #mittzingers on Twitter), but it actually does give us a window into the unfortunate state of the Romney campaign.
I’m sure they’re feeling pretty tense up in Boston right now. Barack Obama has a small but stubborn lead in every poll, there’s only a month left, and these debates are the best chance the campaign has at doing something dramatic. So if you were involved in Romney’s debate prep, you probably wouldn’t think that just showing your candidate to be smart and likeable will be enough to change the campaign’s direction. Hence the pressure for zingers.
But it’s tempting to learn the lessons of past debates a little too well, and that may be what is happening to the Romney campaign right now. Yes, debates are to a significant degree about “creating moments,” insofar as “moments” are what reporters are looking for. It’s true that reporters’ interpretation of the debate ends up mattering as much or more than the debate itself, since most voters won’t see it and those who do will largely forget the parts they aren’t being reminded of over and over. But if you come out and announce that you’re preparing zingers, then you’ve given the game away, and changed how any zingers Romney does manage to zing are going to be interpreted.
This is one of those things that depends on a mutual agreement between the campaigns and the press. Almost every great line from past debates was planned, but if the zinger is zingy enough, reporters will decide not to spend too much time exploring its provenance and focus instead on what effect it might have on the race. But once you’ve told reporters that you’re preparing some zingers, the only possible response from the observers once the time comes is, “Oh, here’s one of those zingers they prepared.” It will be presented to readers and viewers of post-debate analysis not as “a clever line showing Mitt Romney’s dextrous mind and raising real questions about President Obama,” but “a line Mitt Romney practiced with his campaign advisors, and then delivered on cue.” The Romney campaign has made it impossible for reporters to suspend their disbelief.
Is it possible that the Romney brain trust has crafted a line so brilliant, so biting, so devastating that Obama’s re-election bid will crumble at its utterance? I guess it’s possible, but it’s hard to imagine that the Romney people genuinely believe they’ve come up with such a thing. But at this point, what else have they got?
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, October 2, 2012
“Truth Is An Inconvenient Nuisance”: Mitt Romney Abandons The Pretense Of Caring About Facts
Nearly three weeks ago, Mitt Romney suggested attack ads rejected by “the various fact-checkers” shouldn’t be on the air. Candidates exposed by the fact-checkers should feel “embarrassed” and pull the falsehoods from the air.
Last week, Romney switched gears. Told that “the various fact-checkers” consider his ridiculous welfare smear to be a blatant lie, the Republican said fact-checkers are fine, so long as they agree with him. If not, they must be biased.
Today, Team Romney abandoned the pretense of caring about honesty altogether.
Mitt Romney’s aides explained with unusual political bluntness today why they are spending heavily — and ignoring media criticism — to air an ad accusing President Barack Obama of “gutting” the work requirement for welfare, a marginal political issue since the mid-1990s that Romney pushed back to center stage.
“Our most effective ad is our welfare ad,” a top television advertising strategist for Romney, Ashley O’Connor, said at a forum Tuesday hosted by ABCNews and Yahoo! News. “It’s new information.”
The claims are “new,” of course, because the Romney campaign made them up. Sure, it’s “new information,” in the same way it would be “new information” if Obama said Mitt Romney sold heroin to children — when one invents a lie, its “newness” is self-evident.
Romney pollster Neil Newhouse added, “[W]e’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.”
Right. So, in early August, Team Romney believed “the various fact-checkers” should be the arbiters of rhetorical propriety, but in late August, Team Romney believes they’re irrelevant.
It’s important to realize there is no modern precedent for a presidential candidate rejecting the premise that facts matter. Mitt Romney is trying something no one has ever seen — he’s deemed the truth to be an inconvenient nuisance, which Romney will ignore, without shame, to advance his ambitions for vast power.
If you don’t find that frightening, you’re not paying close enough attention.
I loved Greg Sargent’s take on this, because Greg’s question is so terribly important.
In this sense, the Romney campaign continues to pose a test to the news media and our political system. What happens when one campaign has decided there is literally no set of boundaries that it needs to follow when it comes to the veracity of its assertions? The Romney campaign is betting that the press simply won’t be able to keep voters informed about the disputes that are central to the campaign, in the face of the sheer scope and volume of dishonesty it uncorks daily.
The quotes in the BuzzFeed piece should send a shiver down the spines of the political world. Forget parties and ideologies, put aside agendas and values, and just consider what Team Romney is saying: they can lie with impunity and they don’t give a damn who disapproves. So long as it leads to more power in Romney’s hands, anything goes.
Romney is, in effect, issuing something of a dare — he will ignore facts, thumb his nose at reality, and taunt truths with a childish question: What are you going to do about it?
E. J. Dionne Jr. had a column way back in September 2004 that’s always stuck with me. He noted, in the midst of the Bush-Kerry campaign, that Republicans are not above lying, but Dems seem to be squeamish about it. “A very intelligent political reporter I know said the other night that Republicans simply run better campaigns than Democrats,” Dionne noted. “If I were given a free pass to stretch the truth to the breaking point, I could run a pretty good campaign, too.”
That was nearly eight years ago. It was hard to predict at the time that a candidate would stop trying to “stretch the truth to the breaking point,” and start telling bald-faced lies, confident he could get away with it.
I was always taught that campaigns can spin, slice, fudge, and distort the truth, but they couldn’t literally make stuff up. The political fabric of our democracy tolerates a generous amount of duplicity — so long as there’s at least a kernel of truth in the claim somewhere — but demonstrable lies are unacceptable.
Romney believes the old norms are irrelevant. I wonder if he’s right.
If Romney wins, make no mistake, it will establish a new precedent, and campaigns will receive an unmistakable lesson — go ahead and lie; you’ll be rewarded for it.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, August 28, 2012
“Letting Romney Off Easy”: Proud Enablers, Media Trades Ethics For Access
In the wake of last month’s New York Times dispatch about reporters letting powerful politicians edit quotes before publication, various establishment media outlets angrily denounced the practice. Seeking to distance themselves from the ugly image of journalists serving as de facto spokespeople for the politicians they are supposed to be scrutinizing, these outlets made such a public spectacle in order to reassure their audiences that they would never trade ethics for access.
But, of course, anyone working in journalism in recent years knows such trades have long been standard practice. Today’s reporters are expected to acquiesce to demands by politicians, and most often, they do just that. And while their feigned public umbrage at the Times’ quote approval story shows that news outlets are at least smart enough to be embarrassed by their unscrupulous behavior, it doesn’t mean the behavior has stopped. On the contrary, as last week’s headline-grabbing interchange between a local Colorado reporter and the Romney campaign shows, that behavior persists, with the establishment media serving as a proud enabler.
Here’s what happened: According to CBS 4′s Shaun Boyd, she was asked by Mitt Romney’s campaign to do a satellite interview with the Republican presidential nominee, who wanted to get a carefully scripted message out to this swing state’s voters. Boyd agreed to do the interview — not surprising, because it could be (and was) billed as a major scoop for her local news station. This was no ordinary Q&A, though. Fearing a repeat of Boyd’s laudably hard-hitting interview of Romney back in May, Romney’s campaign demanded that Boyd not ask the candidate about abortion or the Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin controversy. Incredibly, Boyd agreed.
When the interview occurred, Boyd (unfortunately) held up her end of the sordid deal, not asking Romney about what has become one of the defining issues of the entire election. However, she did tell viewers about the no-abortion-question condition, which consequently became a story unto itself.
Democrats and news organizations pounced on Romney’s interview conditions, correctly citing them as proof that he doesn’t want to answer tough questions. Meanwhile, Boyd basked in the reflected glow, garnering national and local media attention that portrayed her as a supposed star fighting the good fight on behalf of journalistic integrity. For instance, the Washington Post featured her in a “wide-ranging interview” and touted her for giving “serious consideration to the handling of the staffer’s extreme conditions” (and yet then submitting to them). Likewise, in the local media market, Denver Post editorial page editor Curtis Hubbard gushed on Twitter about Boyd, while the Post’s Alicia Caldwell took to the paper’s website to congratulate Boyd for “push(ing) back against the Romney camp’s conditions.”
Amid the celebration, though, these same voices of supposed journalistic integrity forgot to mention that Boyd didn’t simply reject Romney’s interview request and then do a story about the demands — a move that would have been genuinely praiseworthy. Instead, she publicly complained about the conditions, but nonetheless acquiesced to them. Sure, she was absolutely correct to acknowledge the conditions on the air before airing the Romney-censored interview — and, certainly, she should be given some modicum of credit for disclosure. But that disclosure shouldn’t be portrayed as some hugely courageous act. On the contrary, being honest with viewers and disclosing such conditions is the absolute least any reporter should do when acceding to such preposterous demands. Indeed, the fact that Boyd’s disclosure was so venerated implies that it is now all but unheard of in newsrooms to even respect that minimum standard of transparency.
What’s so especially damning about this episode is that Boyd likely had leverage in this situation. After all, as she said, Romney’s campaign came to her asking for an interview, not the other way around. Put another way, Romney’s campaign wanted something from CBS 4, giving CBS 4 more power to dictate the terms. Boyd or her bosses could have made the “beggars can’t be choosers” argument, telling Romney he could have the valuable airtime he desired, but not with such preposterous conditions — and if he didn’t like it, they could have told him no deal. Instead, for the sake of access, Boyd folded, conducting the interview on Romney’s terms and promoting it on CBS 4′s website. Just as troubling, she was subsequently portrayed as a great hero by the same establishment media that publicly pretends to be offended by trading ethics for access.
This is the kind of thing that is no doubt happening every day on the campaign trail — and it has profound long-term effects. As KDVR Fox 31′s chief political correspondent Eli Stokols told me on Friday, whether it is a reporter like Boyd accepting such conditions or other media outlets condoning such compromises, campaign reporting is now actively — and knowingly — contributing to the degradation of both journalism and America’s democratic process. He said:
“We in the media all see how campaigns try hard to limit information, restrict access and force their limited engagements with the press to take place on their own terms. It’s depressing that elections, at least from the campaign side, are no longer about getting information to voters so they can make informed decisions, only about getting voters to make the decision the campaigns want them to make. But when we accept a campaign’s terms of certain questions being off limits or allowing staffers approval on quotes, we are both accepting and enabling the smallness of our politics; and we’re diminishing ourselves and our profession in the process.
“It’s a sad state of affairs when journalists are so desperate for anything resembling a scoop that they willingly acquiesce to ridiculous stipulations and conditions because scrubbed quotes and contrived interviews still make us feel good as long as we can call it ‘an exclusive’.”
While voters may not know exactly how the reporter-politician relationship works, their vague sense of what Stokols describes is almost certainly one of the reasons they have lost faith in the press corps. Until more rank-and-file reporters, editors and news producers renegotiate the terms of those relationships on more ethical grounds, that faith will continue to diminish — as it should.
By: David Sirota, Salon, August 24, 2012
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