By now you’ve probably seen Joe Biden’s shock and anger as a local TV anchorwoman asks him some provocative questions during a satellite interview.
If liberal politicians and candidates think those questions are tough, they should try being a conservative candidate for a day. The tenor and tone of the questions asked of Biden was like EVERY SINGLE PRESS CONFERENCE I conducted as a conservative candidate for Governor of Arizona. Virtually every mainstream media interview consisted of “gotcha” journalism and attack questions. And that is exactly what every conservative candidate faces in state and national elections all the time.
That’s because most in the mainstream media operate from a liberal worldview. Those types of aggressive questions of conservatives just seem normal to them. Imagine if every interview Sen. Obama conducted was with a journalist who viewed the world like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity.
Liberal candidates have no idea what this feels like. So they react with shock and anger, as if to say “How dare you ask me a tough question?” We see flashes of that anger from Gov. Napolitano when she gets a tough question from the local media — every six months or so. The most aggressive question Barack Obama got during the entire campaign was from a plumber, not a journalist.
The entire landscape of journalism is changing, as daily newspapers continue to decline in circulation and layoffs continue. Campaigns in the future will have more opportunities to speak directly to the people rather than through an MSM filter. While that is sad for those of us who grew up loving journalism and the daily newspaper, conservatives always do best when they speak directly to the people.
UPDATE: The Obama-Biden campaign is telling people today that they won’t do interviews where the reporter is just repeating McCain campaign talking points. Two thoughts. First, not even Sarah Palin called Obama a Marxist, so that was not really a McCain campaign talking point. And second — virtually every question directed at conservative candidates is a liberal talking point from the opposing campaign. Grow up already.
