The Love is Gone

As any observant political person could have predicted, once John McCain became the GOP nominee the media, who used to hang on his every word, would drop him like a hot rock in favor of whoever the Dem nominee was. That started happening awhile back but it seems like it's finally dawning on the McCain campaign. The media was never their true friends, and now that they think they can destroy Sarah Palin and the GOP campaign all in one move, they're becoming even more obnoxious.

Sept. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The longtime love affair between John McCain and what he once called his ``base'' -- the national news media -- is on the rocks.

McCain's campaign manager, Steve Schmidt, yesterday lashed out at what he deemed ``offensive'' and ``demeaning'' coverage and questions from reporters after McCain's running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, confirmed her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.

``It used to be that a lot of those smears and the crap on the Internet stayed out of the newsrooms of serious journalists,'' Schmidt said at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Schmidt's criticism is the latest example in the unraveling of what was once a fond relationship between the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and the media. Starting in the 2000 Republican primaries, the Arizona senator became a media sensation by chatting up the press in the back of his ``Straight Talk Express'' campaign bus. The national press corps freely mingled with McCain for hours on the bus, with no topic off limits.

More recently, though, McCain, 72, has accused news organizations such as the New York Times, Time magazine and the NBC network of being unfair to him. The campaign even considered pulling out of one of the three presidential debates because it would be moderated by Tom Brokaw, a former NBC News anchorman.

`Media Scrutiny'

``McCain's both been close to and now, to some extent, the object of media scrutiny that he's never had before,'' said Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican.

In one way, the more strained relationship may be an asset for McCain by broadening his appeal to conservative Republicans who believe the media has a liberal bias.

``There are a lot of people who don't like the press anymore and think they're out of control; attacking the messenger isn't a terrible political strategy,'' said Darrell West, a scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington who has written several books on the mass media.

Yet, it may also have pitfalls. ``You still need the press to get your message out and if you have an antagonistic relationship it can blow up in your face,'' West said.

Ah, not so fast there Mr. Mass Media Expert. In an age where most people have email and access to the Internet, the dinosaur press is not such a big deal when it comes to getting your message out. Newspapers are dying and people openly laugh at most of the broadcast networks and cable news stations. McCain made serious inroads into Obama's poll numbers with a bunch of inexpensive Internet videos and I probably get 3 or 4 emails a day with their "message". There are alternatives to kissing up to the media.

McCain should have seen this coming. The media was his friend when it was good to be a "maverick" and oppose President Bush. He nurtured that relationship, apparently never realizing that he wouldn't always be going steady with them. The media stayed on his side just long enough to get him the nomination...and then dumped him as I knew they would.

The media now has Sarah Palin in their sights. They've sent investigators to Alaska to dig up every real or perceived scandal they can generate, and they would love nothing more to cripple the nomination. I think they are badly mistaken if they believe that McCain will abandon her or that she will withdraw just because of a little press scrutiny. The press doesn't understand that you don't get the "maverick" label by running away from a fight, and I don't think conservatives are going to abandon Palin just because the press wants us to. If anything, conservatives will see the scurrilous attacks for what they are and will rally to the ticket.

UPDATE: I just saw Susan Estrich interviewed on Fox. Estrich is the very liberal female former campaign manager for Michael Dukakis and the subject of the interview was the media treatment of Sarah Palin. She said that she'd probably never be a fan of Palin because of their policy differences, but she was outraged at the treatment Palin was getting in the mainstream media and on some of the big lefty blogs. She thinks a great many Hillary Clinton supporters - maybe as many as 30% - who were offended by the sexism shown Hillary during the primaries, may be in play for McCain. That would be potentially millions of voters stripped away from Obama.