The World According to Oatney

Press Throwing Fit Could Be Good For McCain

The press is having a fit over John McCain's decision to go after Barack Obama:

Today might be a day when John McCain ought to simply forget to read the news
clippings, turn off the cable TV, and not browse The Google. The editorials that
are blasting his new Britney-Paris ad and other attacks against Obama are piling
up.

After making a career of placating the press and singing Kumbuya with the Democrats, John McCain is slowly figuring out that Republicans and conservatives do not win elections by doing things that please the mainstream media. When the GOP adopts a "do things that get positive press all the time" strategy, this tends to demoralize the conservative base of the party because it appears as though the candidate or candidates are failing to find and expose the negatives of the other candidate, and that they are not placing doubt in the minds of the voters.

Put bluntly, the mainstream media outlets are not-and never have been-our friends. I believe very strongly in the freedom of the press, but that freedom means having many voices that are not part of the major media, and have the ability to counter the press' normally favorable coverage of liberals and Democrats. While I personally may admire the work of individual journalists (the late Tim Russert, for example), I have little trust for the mainstream press as a whole, and that is a widely shared opinion among conservatives.

In the years that Republicans have attempted to do things to placate the press, they have usually lost. Recent history shows that it was the years the GOP eessentially told the press to go to Hell (without actually saying so) that they won-1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, and 2004. Base conservative voters will turn out in numbers when it appears that the news media hates their candidate, because if the mainstream press hates our nominee they must be doing something right.

That could prove a factor this year, when outlets such as NBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Time are treating Barack Obama as though he is Messiah and Lord.

John McCain simply needs to ignore the press and keep the heavy guns aimed directly at the center of the Obama line.

Labels: Democrats, News Media, Presidential Election, Republican Party

posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 9:56 AM