God-o-Meter is glad it’s not the only one who has trouble getting the McCain campaign to return its calls.
In response to readers asking why he lavishes so much more attention on Barack Obama, CBN political correspondent/blogger David Brody explains how unresponsive the McCain camp is to religious media:
The Brody File is writing the following post because we’ve had numerous emails and comments about why John McCain is not appearing as much as Barack Obama on The Brody File. Where do I begin?
First of all, The Brody File has made numerous (dozens) of requests for a one on one interview with John McCain. Those requests have been turned down due to various reasons. Usually I am told it is a scheduling issue. I have been trying for six months. The Brody File has bent over backwards to try and get John McCain to discuss issues of faith, social policy and other matters….
I share this information with you because you asked about it and it’s hard for the Brody File to respond to the hundreds of emails I get about this. On the other hand, the Obama campaign has made a decision to aggressively court people of all faiths and appearing with me is part of that strategy. I have NOT approached the Obama campaign with more interview requests than the McCain campaign. Actually, it’s been quite the opposite because I’ve come to realize that John McCain has been a harder “get”….
So when you see Barack Obama sitting down with me and appearing on CBN, don’t think for a minute that we aren’t affording the same opportunity to John McCain. We are.
God-o-Meter has sat down with John McCain, but that was nearly a year ago. It has encountered serious hurdles to setting up even background conversations with McCain aides.
The McCain camp’s unresponsiveness to religious is reminescent of the 2004 Kerry campaign, which GOM wrote about in its book The Jesus Machine:
After the Catholic League attack, [Kerry religious outreach director Mara] Vanderslice was barred by the Kerry campaign from speaking ot the press. She had been hired barely a month earlier. When the Catholic League later criticized the religious outreach director for the Democratic National Committee, she was silenced as well The result was that the Democrats’ ties to the religious press, including widely read publications like the Baptist Press and Christianity Today, were completely severed. “Reporters from the religious press would call and they didn’t get their phone calls returned for two or three months,” Vanderslice said. “The campaign made a decision not to work with Christianity Today, which is the in the mainstream part of the evangelical community. It’s not like Focus on the Family Magazine. They didn’t return CT’s calls.”
That helps explain why Christianity Today’s October 2004 profile of John Kerry read like a hatchet job…. With a readership in the hundreds of thousands, Christianity Today wasn’t the only evangelical concern that felt shunned by the Kerry campaign. “I was shocked when my office told me that the Kerry campaign will not return our phone calls,” said National Association of Evangelicals then-president Ted Haggard. Whenever Haggard was asked in the evangelical media about his views on the John Kerry during the presidential campaign, he would respond by saying simply his phone calls were going unreturned. “I said it on TBN [Trinity Broadcasting Network] probably ten times,” Haggard recalled. “I said it on Focus on the Family. I said it on [Christian broadcasting giant] Bott Radio. I was not trying to angle the campaign. I was trying to get Kerry to call me. It was because he didn’t have anybody on his team that listens to those things. All he needed was somebody that was an evangelical on his team. That would have swung Ohio.”
Now the tables are turned, and the Republican presidential campaign is the one brushing aside religious media. God-o-Meter has been wondering how much of this is calculated–it’s no secret that the McCain camp is courting moderates and doesn’t want to alienate them with lots of high-profile cuddling up the Religious Right–and how much is out of clumsiness or a lack of sophistication in dealing with religious outreach, which would be remarkable for a modern Republican presidential campaign.
Care to venture a guess?
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posted August 22, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Face it, the GOP has been playing the evangelical wing of the party for fools for over 25 years. David Kuo hit the nail on the head with his book. Reagan and the two Bush’s were more artful at it, perhaps. But the intent is the same. They know that you have nobody else to vote for, and that you won’t dare stay at home on election day and risk letting the Democrats get the White House AND both houses of Congress.
This is why the abortion issue is becoming more talked about. It’s an election year…of course they are going to trot out pictures dead fetuses to get the grass roots excited for their candidate.
posted August 22, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Whenever McCain speaks one on one, he says things that come back at him. you ar enot the only ones he has trouble speaking to. The only people he can talk to are the very rich and the pro-life.
posted August 23, 2008 at 9:00 pm
McCain also refused to speak with the Military Times reporters. Why? Because he does not want to answer difficult questions. In an article about Michelle Obama meeting with military spouses, the editor put a note to McCain (see below).
In the only meeting with the Military Times on Oct. 16, 2007, McCain bragged he had been on the Comedy Central – Daily Show 12 times.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/08/military_michelleobama_families_080608w/
Aug 8, 2008
Barack Obama has released his plan for supporting military families, which includes creating a military family advisory board of experts and family representatives to identify ways to ease the burden on spouses and families. He would also provide more support for volunteer networks, “including services and training and paid support staff,” according to a brochure provided at the roundtable.
Editor’s note: Military Times has a standing interview request with Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona. To read a transcript from an earlier roundtable meeting between McCain and Military Times reporters and editors held last October, visit http://www.militarytimes.com/mccaininterview
Oct. 16, 2007
Q: Before we get started on the serious questions, I’ve got to get this out of the way … you’ve been on the [Comedy Central] Daily Show 11 times.
McCain: More than — I think 12 — more than anybody, I think.
Q: And this is the first time you’ve been here.
McCain: Well, it shows I have my priorities straight. [Laughter.]
Q: Twelve times now.
posted August 24, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Wow, was this one interesting article.
FWIW, I think that many Americans of all religious and political convictions believe deeply that things are not working, and that we have to find new ways to listen to one another, find common ground, and move forward in new ways.
Frankly, if anyone had told me even one year ago that I’d come to a website operated by an evangelical group, I’d have thought they were nuts. But then I read Jim Wallis’s book, and it was like ‘manna from heaven’.
FWIW, I think that there are people who would prefer that we all remain divided — over abortion, or over gay marriage, or over anything that prevents us from reaching across our differences and finding common ground. But in the face of global warming, I don’t see how that makes any sense; we HAVE to come to agreements on some very serious issues that confront everyone — irrespective of their views on abortion, or on gays.
This article is one more confirmation that society is changing. It so happens that the Democratic Party appears to be more open to renewal (because it was the party that had lost power and has had to rethink itself). However, it’s also the case that some in the evangelical movement (Jim Wallis, Rick Warren) aren’t bashing us non-evangelicals for our beliefs, and are a whole lot more rational and sane that Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson ever were. The new evangelical spokesmen don’t seem like resentful, angry, power-driven Noise Machines, and that makes it easier for someone like myself to hear more of what the evangelicals are saying about climate change and social justice issues.
And wow…. I have waited YEARS to hear it!