Talking Points MemoThere's a lot of complaining that the McCain campaign won't allow anyone to interview Sarah Palin. And for the major news outlets that would be in line for such an interview there's a logic to keeping up the drumbeat. But McCain campaign manager Rick Davis is right: It's their campaign to run. They can do it how they want. Everyone else should just shut up, stop complaining and call the reality for what it is.
Davis says Palin won't give any interviews until she feels "comfortable" giving one. And this morning he added that she wouldn't give any "until the point in time when she'll be treated with respect and deference."
Sarah Palin could be the President of the United States in four and a half months. We tend to think of this as an abstraction; but it's true. And yet today she's so unprepared and knows so little about the challenges and tasks facing the country that she can't even give a softball interview.
That's a little off as I think Davis makes clear that "softball" interviews are perfectly fine, if he can be guaranteed that will be the case. What the media wants is Sarah Palin vs. Sam Donaldson chock full of questions like this (via
Biblical Christianity):
- "Do you think women should be pastors?"
- "Why can a woman be a president, but not a pastor?"
- "Do you think wives should submit to their husbands?"
- "Do you obey your husband in all things as to the Lord?"
- "Do you hit your children?"
- "Do you believe in evolution?"
- "Do you believe the world was created in six days, 6000 years ago?"
- "Will everyone who doesn't believe in Jesus go to Hell?"
- "Do you think the Bible is the literal Word of God?"
Questions like these are gotcha questions, because they are almost certainly designed not to satisfy curiosity, but to box the candidate out of the mainstream of American thought And this is what the McCain campaign is probably concerned about.
How to handle that? First she needs to get prepped on the issues of the day. This is a fair observation, up until about a week and a half ago she was mainly concerned with running Alaska. Her circle of concern has widened a bit lately and there are a lot of facts to get up to speed on. She could also stand some coaching on how to handle gotcha questions.
Second is to let the media focus, which is running white-hot right now, to cool down a bit. Obama, Biden, and McCain, and the rest of the politicians in Washington will inevitably do something to take Palin out of the headlines, if not the front page. Let's hope anyway. Then the interviews can proceed as normal. Again I can't see that the McCain campaign has any concerns about Palin's poise or ability to think on her feet, but time cannot hurt her here.
In fact, just as in the speculation over the RNC speech, expectations over the first interview may also serve to blow back in Palin's favor once she shows she can handle the press as well as anyone. I've reviewed the debates and press conferences from her governor days. She does fine.
The press can howl as much as it wants to, but there is every reason to believe that the McCain campaign knows exactly what it is doing. Also we'll know soon, as the first interview
is sometime later this week with Charlie Gibson at ABC, an excellent choice.
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