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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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The Maverick and the Media
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Candidate
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| Contributor | Scott³ |
| Last Edited | Scott³ Mar 26, 2008 06:02pm |
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| Category | Opinion |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Wednesday, March 26, 2008 11:55:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | NY Times.
"IT is certainly no secret that Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican pres. nominee, is a darling of the news media. Reporters routinely attach “maverick,” “straight talker” and “patriot” to him like Homeric epithets. Chris Matthews of MSNBC has even called the press “McCain’s base” — a comment that Mr. McCain himself has jokingly reiterated. The mainstream news media by and large don’t cover Mr. McCain; they canonize him. Hence the moniker on liberal blogs: St. McCain.
What is less obvious, however, is exactly why the press swoons for him. The answer, which says a great deal about both the political press and Mr. McCain, may be that he is something political reporters really haven’t seen in quite a while, perhaps since John F. Kennedy.
Seeming to view himself and the whole political process with a mix of amusement & bemusement, Mr. McCain is an ironist wooing a group of individuals who regard ironic detachment more highly than sincerity or seriousness. He may be the first real postmodernist candidate for the presidency — the 1st to turn his press relations into the basis of his candidacy.
Of course this is not how the press typically talks about Mr. McCain. The conventional analysis of his press popularity begins with his military service. If campaigns are primarily about narratives, he has a good and distinguished one, and it would take a very curmudgeonly press corps to dismiss it, even though that is exactly what a good portion of it did to Sen. Kerry’s service record in 2004. Reporters also often cite Mr. McCain’s bonhomie as the reason for their affection. As Ryan Lizza described it last month in The New Yorker, a typical campaign day has Mr. McCain rumbling from one stop to another on his bus, the Straight Talk Express, sitting in the rear on a horseshoe-shaped leather couch surrounded by reporters & talking “until the room is filled with the awkward silence of journalists with no more questions.” |
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