This looks like quintessential — and usually quite effective — damage control: politically sagging Democratic Presidential nomination contender Barack Obama is planning a major mutual T.V. appearance with his wife Michelle, the Los Angeles Times reports:
Now that Barack Obama has distanced himself publicly, if painfully, from the pastor who married him and his wife and baptized their children, he is getting close to the wife in a national television appearance.
NBC’s Meredith Vieira will sit down with Barack and Michelle Obama today in Indianapolis for an interview that will air on the “Today” show Thursday. A segment of the talk will air on NBC’s “Nightly News” and on MSNBC this evening.
Michelle Obama has been a tireless campaigner for her husband on the road. And now, as the Democratic candidate for president attempts to put the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in the campaign’s rear view mirror, he is presenting a new image for public consumption: A professional and happily married couple willing to face a rough political time together.
This kind of appearance by beset candidates can indeed work since it provides lucrative sound bites that are played over and over and helps offset some other negative news that has come out of news cycles.
The most prominent example of an appearance of this kind that was successful is from 1992 when then-Governor Bill Clinton went on 60 Minutes to be grilled by Steve Kroft amid allegations of (pre-Oval Office) infidelity. His wife Hillary Clinton was by his side. DETAILS HERE.
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.