Posted on 03/02/2016 4:39:53 AM PST by Kaslin
When the dust settles on this wild and wacky GOP primary season, there will be at least one clear Biggest Loser: the Republican National Committee.
After 2012, when liberal journalists routinely hijacked the party's 20 televised debates while cashing in on ratings and advertising revenue, the RNC resolved to change narrative-surrendering business as usual.
There would be no more cable TV anchors belligerently taking President Obama's side while arguing with the GOP nominee (as Candy Crowley infamously did with Mitt Romney over Benghazi).
There would be no more former Democratic operatives-turned journalists injecting their left-wing social agenda into GOP primary forums (as Clinton adviser-turned-ABC newsman George Stephanopoulous did at the January 2012 Republican debate in New Hampshire when he pushed the Democrats' War on Women propaganda by pressing Republicans on a nonsense contraceptive ban.)
And there would be real balance in the selection of moderators, through partnerships "with conservative media to make sure the concerns of grassroots Republicans are addressed."
RNC chairman Reince Priebus declared in 2014 after the committee adopted measures to reassert control over the process: "The liberal media doesn't deserve to be in the driver's seat."
How's that working out? It's the same old, same old. Last week's debate hosted by CNN was commandeered by a Telemundo celebrity journalist Maria Celeste Arraras, known as "the Katie Couric of Spanish TV," who soaked up nearly half the show representing "the Latino community" on issues such as Puerto Rico's bankruptcy.
It shouldn't have been a surprise to the RNC. She did the same during a Democratic presidential debate in 2004, when she argued with candidates about driver's licenses for immigrants here illegally. The lone conservative token questioner, Salem radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, received a fraction of the time. The infamous "screaming lady" in the audience earned far more buzz.
Hewitt had made an earlier appearance in the second debate hosted by CNN last September. But again, he was relegated to the margins. As even the left-wing New York Times pointed out, the network "came to the second Republican primary debate looking for a fight" along with an agenda of setting up "catfights" between Donald Trump and the rest of the candidates.
Conservative blogger Scott Johnson of Power Line noted that instead of giving GOP voters "a chance to assess the strengths of the candidates and to pick the strongest candidate to achieve their objective...(CNN moderator) Jake Tapper had other ideas in mind. His consignment of Hugh Hewitt to the witness protection program is representative of his pursuit of other ideas."
The third debate hosted by CNBC in Boulder was deemed a complete disaster by observers across the political spectrum. Instead of focusing on economics, as the network and RNC promised they would, the "moderators" made themselves the center of attention with trivial and condescending questions designed to instigate circus conflict between personalities instead of enlightening viewers about actual policy differences between candidates.
Again, this shouldn't have been a surprise to the RNC. CNBC chief clown John Harwood had a long public record running interference for Hillary Clinton, denigrating conservative critics of Obamacare, and shrugging at convicted infant murderer and abortionist Kermit Gosnell.
As for giving actual conservatives a central chance to address the candidates directly, the RNC yielded to Google during the seventh debate in Iowa in January. We didn't hear from grassroots voters who had their health insurance canceled because of Obamacare or business owners negatively affected by Dodd-Frank or victims of illegal alien crime who oppose amnesty.
Instead, the privileged questioners included a YouTube fashionista who had crossed the border illegally from Mexico as a child and a Muslim activist who spread debunked, CAIR-style propaganda about "Islamophobia" hate crimes in America.
The ninth debate hosted by CBS in South Carolina was moderated by John Dickerson, a Beltway liberal elite who called on President Obama to "Go for the Throat!" and "declare war on the Republican Party," and to "pulverize" his political enemies over gun control, climate change and immigration. The event was remarkable not so much for any overt political bias as it was for a complete lack of control over both the candidates and the audience.
And, of course, no one remembers anything about the first debate other than the feud between Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly and Donald Trump.
The obvious, effective solution is to wrest control from mainstream media networks and hold debates sponsored by conservative media outlets with conservative journalists and broadcast/simulcast on neutral ground (hello, C-SPAN!). The RNC had one such debate in the works, but abandoned the idea last month.
For the candidates, continuing with these rigged charades is an exercise in futility and masochism. For the RNC, it's suicide. By its passivity and complicity, the current batch of GOP enablers have proved that they don't deserve to be in the driver's seat.
‘When the dust settles on this wild and wacky GOP primary season, there will be at least one clear Biggest Loser: the Republican National Committee.’
When a party of elected officials decides it no longer selects to represent the will of the people who put them in office, they really should - indeed, they must - lose.
Pffffffft
First door on the right, Kaslin! Can someone open a window??
Interesting body language in the above photo. Carson, Trump, and Kasich all are in a neutral pose; looking straight ahead; hands at their side. Rubio and Cruz have their hands clasped in front; a sign they want to portray confidence, but they feel vulnerable. Rubio’s interlaced fingers are an indication of frustration, hostility.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/nonverbal-dictionary/
she comes across as a reptilian, not unlike Valeria Jarett.
“liberal journalists routinely hijacked the party’s 20 televised debates”
They did it in 2008 and again 2012, its becoming clear that liberals didn’t ‘hijack’ anything they we’re allowed in the front door,
Anyone remember Hillary’s gay Colonel being allowed to question GOP candidates in a CNN debate, I thought this is ridiculous, but then similar events kept happening until they weeded it down to reprobates McCain and Romney to politely lose to Obama and where neither ever once offered up any harsh criticisms whatsoever. This was supposed to happen again with Bush,
Trump and Cruz have both ignored the memo,
Rubio and Kasich are all they have left now unless by some miracle they can hurl Romney’s carcass over the castle wall and pretend its 2012 all over again,
Trump will build a wall beyond the moon, and make the Alpha Draconians pay for it.
Take THAT, shapeshifters!
Are you 100% certain?
Let me suggest that people much smarter than I, who understand both media and politics, are very happy that Republican debates draw all-time record viewers, and these are today translating into all-time record Republican primary voters.
All these new voters seem "mad as hell, and not going to take it any more" -- and what are they mad at?
Well, for one thing, the insanely biased anti-Republican media which they can see most clearly at work in the candidate debates.
So, can somebody explain how, exactly, that's a bad thing?
Good. The RNC has been needing some serious changes for at least 30 years.
great article by ms. malkin !
That’s OK as Trump will own the RNC come 1/17!
She’s is easy on the eyes, though.
It has been needing some change...but what the article is about is something that drives the change in the wrong direction.
This media hijacking is very much how we got McCain in particular - he was the Media candidate for the Republicans.
Trump is largely defeating that, inasfar as fighting against Republican candidates in this environment. Will it continue to work? Perhaps. If not, we’ll get another chance in 2024.
The RNC knows that the media drives it an they apparently like it that way. They are the ones who schedule these things and negotiate format/content.
Would you like to untangle that argument and try again?
Come on, FRiend, that's not so "tangled", is it?
Are you 100% certain?
Etc, etc...So, can somebody explain how, exactly, that's a bad thing?
Easily. Media bias is nothing new. What's new is that the RNC supposedly addressed it for the 2016 election season. Any sentient observer expects bias from the media, it's what they are. They did have expectations of the RNC, whose 'plan' failed miserably.
The media's reputation and standing is no lower than before. The fuel behind Trump's run is anger at the ESTABLISHMENT... and the enemy is now identified as the RNC.
Of course they're the biggest loser. They've lost the benefit of the doubt.
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