…and the media are starting to get annoyed. Even Obama supporter Kevin Drum is beginning to wonder about this:
Obama just doesn’t give the press much access, sometimes shutting them down for weeks at a time. Why? Does this make sense to anyone else as a campaign strategy? I’m baffled by it.
For right now the media are demonstrably in the tank for Obama (indeed that’s the subject of my column today) that it doesn’t matter too much. But I wonder why the restrictive access? Is it because the campaign knows that left to his own devices and not spouting Axelrod’s warmed over West Wing dialogue, Obama’s prone to put his foot in his mouth? The bitter remark, Obama’s recent strategically stupid comment that McCain would be a better President than Bush, his last debate performance, his unwillingness to field many questions about the Rezko affair etc. — all seem to suggest he can’t be trusted with his own mouth to keep his campaign on track.
Meanwhile, the major media are completely exhausting their credibility to attack McCain early in the campaign, and at the same time McCain is respected by most reporters for his total openness with the media. Given the deference the media have shown him thus far, just about the only way the media could turn on Obama is if he shuts them out. And yet, he’s done that repeatedly in his campaign so far.
Then again, I first made this observation a while back, and Obama remains a media darling.