By Holly Bailey
With word that the three network news anchors will be joining Barack
Obama on his trip overseas next week, the New York Times today raises
the question of whether John McCain has been given short shrift when it
comes to media coverage. It's been a festering complaint among McCain's
senior aides, who haven't been shy about telling reporters (often down
to the minute) how much time McCain has received on the evening news
versus Obama. The Times correctly notes that the network anchors didn't
travel with McCain on his last trip to Iraq in March, which also took
him throughout the Middle East and Europe.
But there's a big difference between McCain's trip and the one Obama
will embark on next week to Europe and the Middle East. In what could
be interpreted now as a possible strategic misstep, the McCain campaign
chose not to take reporters along for the ride, forcing media outlets
who wanted to cover the newly elected GOP nominee to travel on their
own without any guarantee of getting anywhere near the senator. The
small group of scribes who made the trek (Newsweek chose not to) faced
a logistical nightmare, from arranging last-minute foreign visas to
struggling to keep up with McCain as they flew commercially from stop
to stop. (McCain traveled by a military aircraft.) In contrast, the
Obama campaign is inviting reporters on its tour, handling all the
logistics--including transportation--for what will certainly be a much
larger press corps than usual.
Why didn't McCain take reporters on his first overseas visit since
clinching the nomination? For one, McCain was on official Senate
travel, and aides rightly worried about an onslaught of stories
questioning whether he was improperly using his Senate office to
benefit his presidential campaign. It was also a campaign in
transition, and they worried they didn't have the manpower logistically
to handle a large press corps on an overseas swing. The Arizona senator
did do several media interviews while abroad, including a pre-arranged sit-down
with CNN's John King in Saddam Hussein's old palace in Baghdad. And
some of the campaign beat regulars were on hand when McCain made a big time gaffe, confusing Sunnis and Shiites. It made headlines back home, but as First Read notes,
it didn't create nearly the stir it would have had Brian Williams,
Katie Couric or Charlie Gibson been reported their evening newscast
from the scene.
Still, McCain aides were disappointed that the senator's trip didn't
generate more coverage back home--headlines they hoped would highlight
McCain's foreign policy expertise. Indeed, some notable moments of
McCain's trip went largely unnoticed back in the States, including a
made-for-campaign moment of pleasantly surprised tourists chanting "Mac
is Back! Mac is Back!" as the senator arrived at a Holocaust museum in
Jerusalem. In advance of Obama's trip, McCain aides have been critical
of what they see as a double standard. This morning,McCain
communication director Jill Hazelbaker called the Democratic nominee's
jaunt a "first-of-its-kind campaign rally overseas." (On his bus this
afternoon in Kansas City, McCain said he didn't agree with Hazelbaker's
remarks and told reporters he would "talk to her.") Yet mixed with that
criticism must be a degree of disappointment at what McCain's March
trip could have been.
UPDATE, 5:45 p.m.: Shortly after arriving in Michigan
for a fundraiser, McCain went before reporters and clarified the
remarks he made earlier this afternoon about Obama's overseas trip.
McCain said he had been talking about Obama's trip to Iraq and Afghanistan-not
the other stops on his tour-when he said he didn't think the visit was
political in nature. "What Sen. Obama does in the other countries,
whether political rallies or not, obviously would then give them a
political flavor to say the least," McCain said.
The
campaign organized the impromptu press conference after a quick
campaign stop at Pronto Pup, a corn dog shop on the shores of White Lake in Western Michigan.
As McCain spoke, Nicolle Wallace, a former White House aide who
recently joined the campaign as an adviser, stood a few feet away,
holding her cell phone toward McCain so that someone on the other end
could hear. When McCain moved on to other subjects, Wallace walked away
and began talking into the phone.
"If
he has political rallies in other places, then obviously it's a
political trip," McCain said. "Apparently it's gonna be if he is going
to have a rally in Germany
at the Brandenberg Gate, which is what is being publicly stated. Of
course, if you have political rallies then it's a political event."
