Internal Memo: McCain Campaign Considered Kicking All New York Times Reporters Off Campaign Plane
Here’s an interesting blast of campaign history: Top aides to John McCain seriously considered barring all reporters from The New York Times from the McCain campaign plane to protest what McCain aides insisted was nonstop unfair coverage of McCain from the paper, according to a new interview and an internal McCain campaign memo that I’ve obtained.
The revelation that the McCain campaign considered going to war with the leading journalistic institution in the country is contained in a new interview that former McCain spokesperson and campaign blogger Michael Goldfarb just gave to Columbia Journalism Review’s Kate Klonick.
Goldfarb said in the interview that the McCain campaign had decided to toss the paper from the plane and that he drew up a memo explaining the decision, but the campaign changed its mind and the memo was never released:
Occasionally they would task me with something and I wouldn’t get to follow through. Like they were going to throw The New York Times off the plane, I wrote the memo explaining that [decision], and then they changed their minds.
I just followed up with Goldfarb, and he showed me the memo on condition that I not quote directly from it. Goldfarb confirms to me that the most senior of McCain aides was seriously contemplating giving the paper the heave ho, and says the memo was prepared with the purpose of publicly informing the paper of its decision.
The memo accuses the paper of basically being nothing more than an outlet intended to disseminate the Obama campaign’s message, and informs the paper that none of its reporters would ever be allowed on the plane again. It lists the following as instances of what McCain aides claimed were examples of unfair coverage:
* A controversial Times piece insinuating that McCain had had an affair with a female lobbyist, a piece that attracted criticism from some liberals (including yours truly).
* The paper’s reporting on a McCain campaign ad that showed a dreamy-looking Obama as it said Obama wanted to teach “comprehensive sex education” to kindergartners — thus showing that Obama is “wrong for your family.”
* The paper’s claim that Palin was a member of the Alaska Independence Party (it turned out she wasn’t — her husband was — and the paper later issued a correction).
As noted above, I thought the McCain campaign was right about the lobbyist piece, but overall, on balance I’d say that the choice of Palin and the stream of debunked claims by the campaign were what caused the tough coverage of McCain.
As you said (and said at the time) the Isikoff piece was problematic and that’s a legitimate point of criticism. But if the other two are the best they could come up with from the probably millions of words the Times spilled on the McCain campaign, then if anything the more logical conclusion would be that the Times was in the tank for McCain.
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From reading the interview, it looks like this stunt was part of a general strategy of playing hardball with the media. Goldfarb’s first words are:
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“[The McCain campaign] assured me that they were looking for someone to attack the press. And that struck me as a really bad idea, but when a presidential campaign calls up and offers you a job you take it.”
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His closing words:
“I was a cudgel. I pissed off the media. They were furious about it. That was the effect the campaign was looking for.”
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That strategy might play well with their base in the primary. But why the would adopt it in the general is beyond me. Taking on the folks who buy ink by the gallon is always a risky strategy. But for McCain, the media darling, to try it was inexplicable, squandering his greatest asset.
Mmmmm, Goldfarb doesn’t sound very bright. The loving media attention to The Maverick is what sustained his campaign long past the expiration date. Pissing the media off, if he indeed did, hastened the distintegration. If that’s the effect the campaign was truly looking for, then McCain was remarkably inept in choosing who to run his campaign.
it is interesting how fast the press turned on him during the campaign…the campaign seemed at times to me like they never imagined the possibility that mccain would ever be covered aggressively.
Greg Sargent:
“[T]he campaign seemed at times to me like they never imagined the possibility that McCain would ever be covered aggressively.”
Exactly. McCain’s history from the 1999/2000 campaign on was as a darling of the press. They treated him as “Saint McCain” as Bob Somerby put it. They were his “base” as McCain himself put it. The media love was his titanium shield, what gave him a real chance of winning despite the utter wreckage of the Republican brand. Somehow, I guess, they deluded themselves into thinking that love was limitless, that it would persist no matter what they did.
A little trip down memory lane. Remember the McCain-love via Somerby:
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh031108.shtml
hey crust, I’m having trouble getting your other comments posted … apologies for that
The paper’s reporting on a McCain campaign ad that showed a dreamy-looking Obama as it said Obama wanted to teach “comprehensive *** education” to kindergartners — thus showing that Obama is “wrong for your family.”
I’d like to hear more about this one, Greg. What was the campaign’s beef here?
Didn’t the Mccains sue the Times recently for the Isikoff articl, I believe?
ami, I think it was the lobbyist who’s suing…
McCain and his camp ran a horrible campaign and the attacks on the media were just icing on the cake. It ended on the right note. McCain gave his best speech in years in concession. If he was as well spoken during the campaign it might have been close or even flipped.
Oh, Michael Goldfarb. What a national treasure he is.
Other highlights from the interview:
“When you have The New Yorker write a story about how Sarah Palin was selected… well, that was like Jane Goodall going in and writing about ******* apes mating in the jungle—they don’t know what’s going on.”
“I’m not convinced that Palin, even with all her weaknesses, wasn’t the most plausible ticket you could have put forward this year.”
“I was a cudgel. I pissed off the media. They were furious about it. That was the effect the campaign was looking for.”
“I don’t have any regrets about the campaign.”
What a guy!
Guys,
Michael Isikoff writes for Newsweek … not the New York Times!
The NYT piece that implied a personal relationship between Vicki Iseman and McCain was written by Jim Rutenberg and a whole passel of the paper’s other reporters.
Leading journalistic institution in the country? What rock have you been under?
Does anyone wonder why WaPo is going down the tubes? It is January 27th and they are covering a story from several months ago. I guess all have agreed that the media will not critique or criticism Obama. We have almost $1 trillion being voted on today, a bill the public hasn’t seen. We have Obama hiring lobbyists he promised he wouldn’t, we have a tax cheat Treasury Secretary, Union Bosses deciding which legislation goes through, A proposed Labor Secretary who will not answer questions, an attorney general candidate who “misrepresented” the truth in his hearings, and a White House Press Corp who is in therapy for their OCD to only write nice things about Obama.
The President of the US is obsessed with going after the 2 non-liberal media outlets in this country (FOX and RUSH), and this stupid website is “breaking” a story on McCain, a campaign plane in 2008, and a NY Times reporters. Egads, Grow up you lunatics. I look forward to the next round of layoffs at the WaPo/Obama Headquarters.