Mitt Romney finally did it: he finally went on a non-Fox, major Sunday morning program where he could face non-Sean Hannity (non p.r., softball) questions. This time he was interviewed by CBS’s Bob Schieffer, one of the best journalists in the business. But it seems that when faced with tough questions Romney’s response is no comment — and in today’s political world there’s a chance he could get away with it. Once again, we are in a different universe today. Only 10 years ago candidates would implode if they used some of the with some of their language or absolute refusal to respond to tough questioning. The plus for Romney: no one can now say he has only been interviewed Fox. Don’t look for him to be on many of these shows (or hold long unscripted press conferences).
PERSONAL NOTE: The Romney campaign increasingly sounds like the 1968 Richard Nixon campaign, which was highly scripted (and one of the guys behind the scenes was an up and coming man named Roger Aisles). I was a freshman student at Colgate University on the student radio station WRCU when I attended a Nixon rally in Syracuse, New York.
Being a political junkie, I had read a lot about the Nixon campaign and knew everything that was coming. Now he’ll say “The American flag will never be a doormat in my administration..” And Nixon said: “The American flag will never be a doormat in my administration..” They’ll be a long cheer. There was a long cheer. And now a sea of balloons will drop from the ceiling. And a sea of balloons dropped from the ceiling. Team Nixon kept tight control on the candidate’s appearances and was highly disciplined. I’m seeing this now with Team Romney. And I’m seeing Team Obama on the defense most of the time — even having to deal with Obama surrogates who’ve veered off message and Clintonistas who feel Team Obama is making grave political strategical mistakes.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.