Preaching To The Choir

Image by Felix_Nine via FlickrChristine O'Donnell, Delaware's U.S. Seante candidate, recently went on Sean Hannity's TV show to announce that she would not be granting any more national media interviews until after the election.  She said she wanted to focus her campaign on the voters of her state (where she trails her Democratic opponent by double digits), and would only be taking questions from the local media.

O'Donnell made that clear by blowing off Sunday morning TV appearances on CBS and the Fox network, citing scheduling conflicts, leaving Bob Schieffer and Chris Wallace (in that order) scrambling for guests.

At first glance, what O'Donnell is saying makes sense.  It's the people of Delaware she needs to appeal to, after all, if she wants to get to Washington.  It could also be that she needed a break from the sudden fame  that came when she won the GOP primary in an upset over her moderate opponent.

(Well, wouldn't you want to do that if cable news kept showing old clips of you spouting off about witchcraft and abstaining from masturbation?  Or having to answer questions about how you allegedly spent your finances from a past campaign?)

O'Donnell says she got the idea from Sarah Palin, who now restricts her public comments to speaking engagements with friendly audiences, and as a Fox News commentator.  Palin should know, having been woefully unprepared for questions asked by Katie Couric and Charles Gibson when she was a vice-presidential candidate during the 2008 campaign.

This is part of a disturbing trend that seems to apply only to Tea Party-backed candidates.  To avoid pesky questions from the so-called 'liberal' media, they run to the shelter of partisan radio and/or Fox News, where bootlicking hosts seldom challenge their guests.  This ends up serving nobody but themselves.

In one notorious example, Sharron Angle--Nevada's Republican Senate candidate--was seen running from a Las Vegas TV reporter to her waiting car because he dared to ask a question.  That was before she started appearing on Fox News, plugging her website every chance she got.  Now Angle's neck and neck with incumbent Democrat Harry Reid, who also happens to be the Senate's majority leader.

As for O'Donnell, just because she is now speaking to the folks in Delaware, that doesn't mean she's going to have the time of day for a reporter from the Wilmington Bugle.  For instance, when was the last time Michele Bachmann, the incumbent congresswoman from Minnesota, took time off from the national spotlight to answer questions from the media in her district?

What Palin calls the "lamestream media" may not be as powerful as they used to be, but they can still be influential in getting a candidate's message out.  See, it's not only your base that's going to decide your fate in November.  It's also voters who have no time for partisan media, and who have only heard of you because of the other candidate's attack ads.  If you don't let them know who you are and what you stand for, then you don't deserve to be elected.  It's that simple.