BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON
NBC’s Brian Williams Monday night focused almost half of the Florida presidential debate, not on substantive issues but on negative ads and who is saying what to whom and what they’re saying back. It was more than 32 minutes into the debate before he posed a question on a real issue–Iran.
The headlines the next day were predictable. “Mitt Romney Smacks Newt Gingrich”, Romney Accuses Gingrich of ‘influence-peddling’,” Romney Unleashes Attack…”, Front-runners Go Toe to Toe…”
For anyone interested in learning where the candidates stand on issues that affect their lives, this debate was the wrong place on the TV channel. They would have been better informed watching the Home Shopping Network.
A day before the debate, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who has been around long enough she gets to be both a correspondent and commentator interchangeably, declared on the Chris Matthews Show that Mitt Romney’s ancestors apparently entered the U.S. from Mexico illegally. She didn’t say Romney should suspend his campaign, being descended from illegals and all, but she did observe that this was going to be a real problem for him in Florida. I was curious as to how the liberal left would replicate the Obama “birther” nonsense.
The day before that Bob Schieffer on CBS’ Face the Nation wasted our time trying to promote a Romney-Gingrich debate on his new one-hour-long show premiering next week, unapologetically putting guests Newt Gingrich and Senator Lindsay Graham on the spot.
The media treatment of the campaign, in a time when the public so badly needs it elevated to a higher plain, is on its traditional descent into the depths of absurdity and irrelevance.
There are a lot of subjects the media could be asking the candidates about: the vast dimensions of immigration; or the many obstacles to energy independence that make its politics so difficult; or how we repair our national infrastructure and which elements of our infrastructure are priorities; or the incredible and high-stakes complexities of regulating the Internet. There are vexing questions swirling around tax and entitlement reform that have barely been touched. What about the U.S. involvement in resolving debt crises in Europe; and the security threats from North Korea and Iran.
Instead our attention is being trained on how much Mitt Romney pays in taxes and whether Gingrich met the legal definition of a lobbyist while in the private sector, and the intriguing tactics and trivialities of the campaigns– who said what about whom, who said what back, who has the better “ground game”, who’s up and who’s down in the polls, who’s got more money, and who’s running the most negative ads.
That’s all interesting and entertaining, but it doesn’t contribute beans to the public’s ability to make good decisions.
The public seemed to react pretty harshly to media’s treatment of the campaigns in South Carolina.
Newt Gingrich got a standing ovation last week when he shot back at CNN’s John King for opening a presidential debate with a question about rehashed, unsubstantiated, and arguably irrelevant accusations from Newt’s ex-wife about their marital relationship 15 years ago.
Some Journalists are rushing to King’s defense, but there is no defense. The question had no chance of telling us anything more about the former Speaker, or his morality, or his judgment than we already know.
Gingrich said that kind of media preoccupation on anything tawdry was one of the reasons why so many, good, capable people don’t run for office or even participate in the political process. He is so right. Ignore for a moment who entered the 2012 race. Think about who didn’t.
I wish we could put the tape on pause and have a serious national discussion about how we conduct political campaigns in this country and why they seem to sink to the lowest common denominator the minute after the first candidates announce and the first negative ads hit the airwaves. The campaigns do not speak well of the republican form of government we are trying to sell to the rest of the world. Worse yet, they have so infected and compromised and corroded the governing process, governing just doesn’t happen.
The media are culpable; they feed off division and conflict, but the media are profit-motivated, competitive private businesses that produce a product they believe their audiences want to consume. And we know a good share of the American audience wants to be entertained and inflamed more than informed. After all, more and more people are going to Jon Stewart, a comedian, for their news.
The public shares blame for the sad state of our electoral process, along with the media, and obviously the politicians and their professional handlers. The fault lines in the process run long and deep.
It would be very gratifying if just this time, with so much at stake, with so much about America being defined politically this year, voters were educated enough to make good, intelligent decisions at the polls. But a well-educated electorate, as opposed to a well-entertained one, may be just too much to ask. Maybe 2014.
Editor’s Note: Mike Johnson is a former journalist, who worked on the Ford White House staff and served as press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican Leader Bob Michel, prior to entering the private sector. He is co-author of a book, Surviving Congress, a guide for congressional staff. He is currently a principal with the OB-C Group.