There we go again. . .
I rarely see a politician target a journalist or a news organization as part of their campaign strategy and think, "Wow, that's going to do them some good at the polls." It has always seemed like a waste of resources to me.
This e-mail from Vernon Robinson is no different.
Mike Baker, the guy Robinson targets, is a new reporter for the AP's Raleigh bureau and seemed like a nice guy when I met him yesterday. As for Robinson's assertion that Baker is a "rabid leftist," I didn't notice him frothing at the mouth or anything.
By way of full disclosure, the news-record.com site used the story in question for some period of time but I don't think it made it into the paper.
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There appear to be some discprencies:
"Robinson is the first black Republican nominee from a competitive North Carolina congressional district in more than one hundred years.
Dr. Ada Fisher, a Republican who ran for the NC 12th district in 2004 may disagree.
"According to the FEC reports filed in April, Robinson is one of only four Republican challenger congressional candidates in the country who raised more money than their incumbent Democrat opponents."
According to the FEC web site, reports as of April 12, 2006 (the latest available) show that Robinson had raised $243,492 ($223,449 from individuals) while Miller had raised $606,214 ($344,056 from individuals).
I think the Robinson campaign does have some valid complaints though:
- Mentioning Robinson's election loses but not Miller's.
- Saying that Robinson is known for "taunting" his opponents without attribution or substantiation.
Posted on May 4, 2006 5:12 PM
Roch:
I’d agree that Robinson has room to find fault with the story. In particular, working from my own news judgment, I would not have applied the tag “perennial candidate” to Robinson.
I don’t know that saying Robinson is known for taunting is that far off the mark – I might have said deriding, but that’s not so far off. As for attribution and substantiation of that, Robinson has a history of advertising that is more aggressive and more demeaning than is the rhetorical norm around these parts. You could argue (and I would) that’s well enough established at this point to say as fact, particularly in a campaign summery story.
Over all, lashing out this way at the media, accusing someone of having an agenda and being a “rabid liberal” (without any real attribution or support) and in general being pretty thin skinned for a public figure doesn’t seem to me to be the best use of campaign resources. The logic might be to create an us-against-the-world mentality that energizes his base…but Robinson is going to need more than his base to get by in November and I don’t think this does much to attract cross-over voters.
Again, look at it purely from a tactical point of view, it looks like a waste of O2.
Posted on May 4, 2006 7:28 PM
The "perennial candidate" descriptor was off the mark and probably a copyright infringement. I'll have to check but I think Joe Rahenkamp has exclusive rights to that mark.
Posted on May 5, 2006 7:23 AM
Old Joe doesn't have exclusive rights, but he's certainly someone to whom the term would apply.
Posted on May 5, 2006 9:27 AM