Americans in rural and urban areas and all walks of life have surely been losing sleep in recent days amid concerns the Republican candidates for president might not appear in debates on CNN or NBC in a couple of years.
With concerns about stagnant pay, job losses or insecurity and the impact of federal government on health care decisions, Americans no doubt put 2016 presidential debates high on their lists of concerns these days.
Yes, that was sarcasm.
Republicans on Friday voted not to partner with the two networks for any presidential debates or sanction participation by GOP candidates in them unless the networks drop their plans for programming about Hillary Clinton.
The GOP says the programming is nothing more than “political ads masked as unbiased entertainment.”
Hopefully, the networks don’t negotiate with terrorists.
Beyond the fact that nothing qualifi es as unbiased entertainment these days, it’s also relevant that none of the programming so off ensive to Republican sensibilities has even been produced yet. The simple fact it’s about Hillary Clinton is enough.
I distinguish between the made-for-TV dramatization of Clinton’s life NBC has in the works and an honestto-goodness documentary a news organization like CNN might want to produce.
It’s standard operatingprocedure for a news channel to develop in-depth pieces on important people. If they are researched well, they typically feature as much “negative” information about the person as they do anything positive.
A dramatization of Clinton’s life, even one starring Diane Lane, isn’t enough to attract my attention. I’ll just watch “Lonesome Dove” again.
Such a brazen attempt to quash a news documentary about a legitimate subject is reprehensible and demonstrates a GOP hard at work trying to manipulate coverage rather than develop a convincing strategy and core set of beliefs the majority of Americans will embrace.
The campaign for the presidency is a critically important process that determines a lot about how our nation will be perceived around the world and how effectively our nation will function in that world.
Americans don’t need either of the two political parties to threaten boycotts over meaningless on-air material. They should do everything within their power to give the public a look at their candidates, a chance to evaluate them,their demeanor and their policies.
Maybe that’s what the Republicans are afraid of. They cannot develop a coherent approach to immigration policy, at least one the majority of Americans can get behind.
They seem to be stuck wishing that President Obama will become a 21st century Jimmy Carter, ushering in a new era of conservatism, but Reagan could ride circles around any quasi-conservative candidate out there today.
The GOP is perplexed about how it lost twice to the community organizer from Chicago and can’t fi nd any sense of unity in the party left behind.
Let’s solve it by boycotting two networks.
That’s the ticket.
Republicans, before any of this Clinton tempest, had already started strategizing about ways to take the edge off the pre-primary debates among GOP candidates.
Remember all those debates last time around, the ones that forced Mitt Romney to the right and left him uncomfortable as a candidate all the way through to November?
Republican leaders don’t want to see that bloody process again, so they’re trying to control the content. They’ve even talked of getting someone like Rush Limbaugh to question the candidates.
Let’s call it the Foxification of the debate process. Like-minded viewers watching likeminded candidates being interviewed by like-minded questioners.
Republicans look like they’re afraid and are running for cover. I just never imagined the party would try hiding behind Hillary Clinton.
Republicans really need to devote what little time they have before the campaign gets serious to plotting a strategy for success and answering the question of how they’ll get voters behind their candidate when the incumbent can’t run again.
Apparently, the GOP believes a CNN documentary might be enough to seal the deal if Hillary Clinton decides to enter the race. If that’s true, the party has bigger problems than what’s being broadcast on either network.
I’ve been convinced my entire adult life that the only way anyone can make a rational decision about presidential candidates is to seek out multiple sources and evaluate all the information with some critical thinking. That means information from the parties, from news coverage, from documentaries and from the candidates themselves.
No single show, on any network, is going to sway voters in any appreciable way, especially when the campaign nowadays last upwards of three years.
Republicans need to fi gure out what compelling things they can say to voters rather than worrying about what a couple of shows might say about a potential opponent.
GREG HARTON IS OPINION PAGE EDITOR FOR NWA MEDIA.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 08/19/2013