Our political Quote of the Day comes from First Read which notes how news that people connected to the liberal group Progressive Kentucky were behind the secret audio taping of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s strategy session have helped the country’s most unpopular Senator enormously and damaged the group — which some say has pretty much self destructed.
*** McConnell couldn’t have asked for a better outcome: After yesterday’s developments in the Mitch McConnell/Ashley Judd/possible bugging story in Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader McConnell couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. As one of us wrote yesterday, “A local liberal group has become the target of scrutiny in a probe into the surreptitious recording published earlier this week capturing a campaign strategy session with Sen. Mitch McConnell’s re-election team. A local Democratic Party official told NBC News Thursday that two members of the activist group Progress Kentucky claimed that they were responsible for a recording published this week on the website of the progressive magazine Mother Jones.” When McConnell originally accused Progress Kentucky on Wednesday, he had no evidence to back it up; in fact, his office later walked back the accusation. But now it appears that he could very well be correct. More importantly, the story has become all about process (who recorded it, how was it done?) and not about the substance (the McConnell camp’s tough talk about Ashley Judd). And it really does put the Democrats in a tougher position in this race, simply because as tough of a campaigner as McConnell is, he can claim he’s playing by the rules while his opponents are not.
This may also now change the image of Mother Jones a bit with at least some voters. On one hand, a controversial scoop bolsters the magazine’s credibility. On the other hand, the (in)famous Romney tape was done by someone working the event as a bartender who had no idea when he started taping that he’d eventually release it to the magazine due to what he heard. In this instance, it was clearly political operatives seeking to get something on McConnell. That changes the dynamic.
All reporting using anonymous sources always runs the real risk that a news source’s ulterior motive may be great and could taint the reporting. This is so clearly a political hit that this report on what McConnell and company said will a)be cheered by Democrats b)will confirm what may already thought about McConnell c)will be seen as sleazy by some voters (this is a gift to conservative talk show hosts) d)will confirm McConnell’s original suggestion that it was “the left” out to get him e)will make Mother Jones more suspect among some independents if they see it leaping at material political operatives want to get out and collected specifically to damage someone who is an opponent.
The fact that McConnell is not a nice political guy and ruthless is not a huge revelation and polls suggest many voters may feel the same way. And he hasn’t run campaigns painting himself as Mr. Touchy Feely. So, in the end, this boomerangs — and the media and political narrative is HOW this was collected and WHY.
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.