SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Rep. Michele Bachmann is a member of the
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and, as such, was
amply prepared to discuss U.S. foreign policy during Saturday
night’s presidential debate at Wofford College here.
During the debate broadcast on CBS, the Minnesota
Republican was first asked about Afghanistan, and signified her
familiarity by name-checking Helmand Province and Kandahar, then
mentioning the Haqqani Network as a major insurgent threat. Asked
later about Pakistan, Bachmann discussed the importance of
stabilizing the nuclear-armed nation against Islamic radicalism.
Subsequently asked about the controversial use of waterboarding
during interrogations of captured terrorists — which she supports,
but President Obama has prohibited — Bachman cleverly quipped that
the incumbent Democrat “is allowing the ACLU to run the
CIA.”
All in all, Bachmann acquitted herself credibly during the
event, co-sponsored by National Journal and billed by CBS
as the “Commander-in-Chief Debate.” It is therefore difficult to
imagine how shocking it must have been for Bachmann, her staff and
her campaign’s supporters to learn that one member of the CBS News
team apparently viewed her as insignificant. In an e-mail exchange,
a network staffer informed CBS political analyst John Dickerson
that Bachmann was interested in appearing on Dickerson’s
post-debate webcast. The staffer CC’ed the message to Bachmann’s
communications director Alice Stewart and when Dickerson answered,
he evidently clicked “reply to all” without realizing that what he
wrote would go directly to the Republican aide. Dickerson wrote:
“Okay let’s keep it loose though since she’s not going to get many
questions and she’s nearly off the charts in the hopes that we can
get someone else.”
What Dickerson appeared to be mean by his “keep it loose”
remark was that he wanted to avoid a firm commitment to have
Bachmann on the webcast, as he was hoping to “get someone else” as
a guest. But the part of the 29-word Dickerson e-mail that
infuriated Bachmann’s team most was what looked very much like
proof of a preordained decision by CBS that the candidate would not
“get many questions” during the debate because she was “off the
charts” — out of contention for the GOP nomination, based on her
declining poll numbers.
Posting the e-mail to Bachmann’s Facebook page, campaign
director Keith Nahigan fumed that Dickerson’s comments were
“concrete evidence confirming what every conservative already
knows — the liberal mainstream media elites are manipulating the
Republican debates by purposely suppressing our conservative
message and limiting Michele’s questions.”
Beyond the specifics of Nahigan’s accusation as it relates
to Bachmann, the “concrete evidence” certainly will be cited by
supporters of several other Republican candidates who have
complained that televised debates this year have been manipulated
to favor certain candidates at the expense of others. These
complaints cannot be dismissed as merely a case of campaigns trying
to “work the refs” to obtain better coverage, because this year the
debates have so clearly influenced the fortunes of GOP
candidates.
Consider, for example, that Atlanta businessman Herman
Cain’s candidacy got an early boost from his strong performance in
the first debate of the year, May 5 in Greenville, South Carolina.
Only five candidates participated in that debate televised by Fox
News, but by the time of the next debate — June 13 in Manchester,
New Hampshire — the debate field had expanded to seven. CNN
decided to exclude former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who had
been in the May debate on Fox, while Bachmann, former Massachusetts
Gov. Mitt Romney, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich were
added. Cain was quite literally shoved aside, relegated to the far
end of the stage, while Romney was at center stage, flanked by
Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul. CNN explained that Johnson’s poll
numbers didn’t rate his inclusion, but if polls controlled the
event, Cain clearly had cause for complaint. Prior to the debate,
Cain was out-polling every candidate on the stage except Romney.
CNN’s own poll
taken June 3-7 showed Cain tied with Gingrich for second, and
yet the stage arrangements in Manchester seemed to suggest Cain was
considered a marginal candidate.
Bachmann emerged from that June debate as an overnight
superstar, and some conservatives suspected that the media were
promoting her candidacy in order to discourage former Alaska Gov.
Sarah Palin from jumping into the 2012 race. Bachmann’s rise — on
July 19 she peaked at 14 percent in the
RealClearPolitics national poll average — was the beginning of
the “flavor of the month” trend in the campaign. For much of the
next several weeks, Bachmann overshadowed the rest of the field
with the exception of one candidate. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman
has been a media darling ever since his June 21 entry into the
field. His poll numbers have never exceeded the statistical margin
of error, but Huntsman has been included in every subsequent debate
(sitting out Las Vegas last month was his choice), as though it
would be unfair to question the legitimacy of the only GOP
candidate to have served in the Obama administration.
(“I know that Jon is the kind of leader who always
puts country ahead of party,” the president said in
naming Huntsman ambassador to China.)
During the third debate — Aug. 11 in Ames, Iowa,
televised by Fox — the moderators clearly were trying to incite
clashes between Bachmann and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty,
who both were going all-out to win that week’s Iowa Republican
Party straw poll. Pawlenty came out the loser in both the Thursday
debate and the Saturday straw poll, and by Sunday quit the race.
Meanwhile, the race had been transformed by the entrance of Texas
Gov. Rick Perry, who quickly rose to become the front-runner. Perry
seemed an unstoppable juggernaut until his performance in three
June debates derailed his bandwagon. While most of Perry’s debate
damage resulted from self-inflicted wounds, this is not to say that
the manipulations of moderators were without effect. Howard Kurtz
watched as the Fox News team planned for the Sept. 22 debate in
Orlando, Florida, aiming to “get
some fireworks going,” as Fox managing editor Bill Sammon put
it.
Whether they’re accused of trying to gin up
rating-friendly “fireworks” or limiting questions to a candidate
they deem to have dropped out of contention, suspicions toward
debate moderators are part of an ongoing erosion of the media’s
credibility. Perfect fairness and complete objectivity are perhaps
an impossible ideal, but when a candidate claims to have discovered
“concrete evidence” of bias, it is a serious charge that merits
serious consideration. Republican voters will ultimately decide
their party’s nominee, despite efforts by the media elite to decide
for them. And Bachmann’s poll numbers are still higher than
Huntsman’s.
