2012 Elections: Romney’s big problem with the blame-stream media
Ask any one person who has followed politics throughout the last 5 decades — and they’ll probably tell you one of the oldest tricks in the Republican playbook is to none other than blame the liberal mainstream media.
Whether the attacks may be logical or not — and it varies often — the attacks against the press have served as a conservative defense mechanism for literal decades: from George H.W Bush’s iconic ‘ANNOY THE MEDIA” bumper sticker in 1992 to Sarah Palin’s criticisms of the ‘liberal mainstream media’ in 2008 to the billboards and the advertisements around the country this year that read ‘Don’t believe a thing the liberal media says’
But in the midst of a heated election season — in which a set of leading conservative voices have often led charge in faulting their own candidate, Republican Mitt Romney, over his campaign strategy, his growing desire for secrecy and the vagueness of his controversial policy platforms, ‘blame the liberal media’ has arguably become a problematic battle cry for the party itself.
Traditionally however, conservatives tend to lock arms and defend the standard-bearer when he’s on his toes — but since Romney emerged as the Republican nominee, there has been numerous pervasive feelings among those in the political field and right wing pundits alike that believe Romney is not their man.
On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal’s always-interesting editorial board slammed Romney for being ‘far too vague’ on his health care policy proposals. The Weekly Standard‘s Bill Kristol subsequently knocked the candidate for running with a ‘pre-Ryan sort of campaign’ comparable to that of [at least to some] of Michael Dukakis campaign in 1988.
Conservative radio Laura Ingraham host also jumped in on the ‘bash Romney’ band wagon after she chastised Republicans for losing what she dubbed a ‘gimme’ election and said the party should without a doubt be ‘shut down’ if Romney doesn’t beat the current President of the United States Barack Obama.
In that context alone, it is often difficult to see how this past week’s battle cry against the ‘liberal mainstream media’ — over the media’s coverage of Romney’s criticism of the President’s foreign policy and of, well, Obama himself — lasts beyond beyond the often never ending current news cycle.
The ambition, better yet, the agenda of such attacks has always been to immediately deflect criticism against the right and demonize a strong coalition of opposition on the left.
But even those who lead the conservative scene itself leveled criticisms against the political press this week cautioning relying on similar attacks that were once issued during the infamous Palin era.
Related articles
- GOP to Mitt Romney: Your so vague dude (bazaardaily.com)
- The Power of Bill Kristol (politicalwire.com)
- Shattering Bill Kristol’s ball (politico.com)
- Bill Kristol Slams Romney For Ignoring Troops, Afghanistan In RNC Speech (mediaite.com)
- Kristol: Romney’s Taxes Too Low (drudge.com)
