Did The Romney Campaign Blow It By Kicking Stacy McCain Out?

Posted on | February 25, 2012 | 29 Comments

by Smitty

Daily Pundit linked Stacy’s “Fear and Loathing in Romneyland“, noting:

And there you have one of the disadvantages of being a journo openly in the tank for one particular candidate.
OTOH, they regard Stacy as a serious enough threat to pitch his ass out of there. Eight years ago, campaigns didn’t even know what blogs or bloggers were.

Have you read any of Stacy’s reporting for the American Spectator, Bill? While he may wear an open bias on the blog, Stacy plays a relatively straight hand in a more formal setting.

Thus, rather than punting him outright, the Romney campaign should have considered the idea of showing Stacy a bit of hospitality, a cup of coffee, and some bandwidth. It’s much harder to be biased against people who are taking care of you than it is against those showing you the door.

Category: Neutral Objective Journalism

Comments

29 Responses to “Did The Romney Campaign Blow It By Kicking Stacy McCain Out?”

richard mcenroe
February 25th, 2012 @ 2:37 pm

Given the amount of coffee and bandwidth Stacy goes through? The Romney campaign ain’t made of money anymore, you know…
demsaresatanic
February 25th, 2012 @ 2:51 pm

Stacy, you drink as much coffee as you want to hon. And if you want to have a smoke while you’re at it, all the better.
Dana
February 25th, 2012 @ 3:08 pm

One of the plagues of all campaigns is that they are at the mercy of their dumbest staffer. It’s unlikely that Mr Romney took this decision himself, but he still winds up being responsible for it. This will be “evidence” that Governor Romney isn’t very good at picking staffers.
Pathfinder's wife
February 25th, 2012 @ 3:19 pm

The incident with the staffer gives the appearance of bad manners.

Making comments that can become clever sound bites about not caring for the very poor, owning 4 cars, and the trees/streets being “just right” also give the appearance of bad manners…it is all well and good to live in Belmont, but it is incredibly rude to flaunt this when more live in Fishtown and are having a lot of trouble in their lives (it’s unseemly during the best of times); something the Belmonters used to have the good sense and manners to know and understand.

In short, the Romney campaign is incredibly, fatally tone deaf (and again takes away one more avenue of attack on ORD).
Evi L. Bloggerlady
February 25th, 2012 @ 3:32 pm

Romney staffers would have been smart to be NICE to Stacy McCain and hope they could get his support for their guy in the long term (if they managed to beat Santorum). It is sort of flattering, however, that they perceive Stacy as a threat. Who needs a Tabitha Hale endorsement.
Bob Belvedere
February 25th, 2012 @ 3:45 pm

But some of the balame can be put on Willard and his top staff. One of the most important duties of an executive is to set a tone among your employees. You are responsible for shaping the way they deal with the customers, as it were. Directives should be promulgated that are infused with the specific team spirit you want to be practiced by your staff.
Bob Belvedere
February 25th, 2012 @ 3:47 pm

I like to use the term ‘noblesse oblige’.
richard mcenroe
February 25th, 2012 @ 4:01 pm

I’m saving up to move TO Fishtown from Bartertown…
Pathfinder's wife
February 25th, 2012 @ 4:17 pm

well, we are trying to position ourselves from living in Fishtown (or the rural equivalent thereof) into being the masters of Bartertown…what are your skills, and can you make a deal?
Pathfinder's wife
February 25th, 2012 @ 4:23 pm

One of the doctors my mom used to work for called it being a real mensch, but “noblesse oblige” works as well.

Romney needed to take the approach of “not a man of the people but definitely for the people”…instead he does this (and the problem isn’t in the actual thing itself, but in how it’s going to be played out in the media), and then brings up things like that minimum wage fiasco and refusing to renounce Masscare…

The time has come for him to learn to connect with the average person — and he can’t seem to do it. This isn’t a winning ticket.
richard mcenroe
February 25th, 2012 @ 5:00 pm

Give me a dwarf in a tophat and I’m competitive…
Joseph Fein
February 25th, 2012 @ 6:33 pm

RS,

Let me help with your Romney research. Find Maya Buki in Boston (Romney HQ homebase) and see what her role is now and withing the Meg Whitman campaign.

All we be learned then.

Hint: She don’t trust us Blogger folk.
Sven
February 25th, 2012 @ 7:08 pm

The answer to the question is: No, the Romney employees in the Michigan office did not “blow it” by showing Stacy the door.

To begin with, Staacy is an unofficial Santorum campaign operative–he even solicits donations for the candidate. He puts a pro-Santorum and an anti-Romney spin on his coverage, and he is a fervent member of the anybody-but-Romney brigade. He showed up unannounced, after hours, wanting to “take a picture” of the office. What the hell? No sane employee of any non-Santorum campaign would have let Stacy barge in and roam around their office.

And then, after getting just the reaction he should have expected, Stacy blogs a round-up of hit pieces on Romney, including a cheap shot that misconstrues and mocks Romney’s religious devotion. Which, of course, only confirmed that the Romney folks did the right thing by blocking Stacy from doing whatever it was he planned to do at the Romney office.

Dick move, Stacy. Dick move.
Edward
February 25th, 2012 @ 7:40 pm

Especially since, and I keep harping on this, he’s been running for President for damn near a decade now.

If you’re an experienced executive running on that experience as an executive and you can’t have a well oiled machine running … after a decade … then wtf!?
Finrod Felagund
February 25th, 2012 @ 7:44 pm

Perhaps Mitt Romney should instruct his staffers to be more familiar with the book of Luke, chapter 6, 27-35:

But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful
and to the evil.
JackieO
February 25th, 2012 @ 9:47 pm

How has Stacy McCain been any different than say a Jennifer Rubin? Do you think the Santorum campaign would roll out the red carpet for her?

If you’re going to be in the tank for a candidate, make sure it’s one that wins.
smitty
February 25th, 2012 @ 9:49 pm

Jennifer Rubin is less painful to gaze upon.
Stacy, however, stands up and admits (a) he’s in the tank, and (b) when he’s been wrong, e.g. Herman Cain.
Adjoran
February 26th, 2012 @ 12:53 am

He’s put out every unsubstantiated rumor and accusation against Romney from early on – and may have invented a few of them. Attributable sources? Don’t need any! Confirmation? What’s that? Actual evidence? Don’t have time – hit the freakin’ tip jar.

I had forgotten about the overt fundraising for Santorum, it’s a very good point confirming that Stacy is NOT a “journalist” in this campaign, but rather a partisan participant.

What’s outrageous is that some people are STUPID enough to demand he be treated with respect by a campaign he treats like dirt.
Adjoran
February 26th, 2012 @ 12:54 am

Tell it to Newt.
Adjoran
February 26th, 2012 @ 1:04 am

BS. He’s repeated crap charges against Romney all along and has never retracted or corrected a one that I have seen.

But he has admitted he is in the tank for Santorum as he was for Cain earlier, and yet expects – and you believe he deserves – something better than he got from the campaign he has repeatedly wronged. Coffee, sympathy, access to their bandwidth.

Really?
Adjoran
February 26th, 2012 @ 1:07 am

Are Stacy’s less poisonous AmSpec pieces evidence of some contrition on his part, or just an acknowledgement that the magazine’s standards wouldn’t allow the sort of unsourced mudslinging he can do on the blog?

In any case, “I haven’t libeled you in EVERY venue” is scarcely an argument in his favor.
Later
February 26th, 2012 @ 1:09 am

Most people are going to ask, “WTF is Stacy McCain?”

No BFD.
smitty
February 26th, 2012 @ 5:36 am

It may be that you are correct, and there would have been no use whatsoever in being diplomatic.
smitty
February 26th, 2012 @ 5:37 am

What were these charges?
My understanding is that Romney is a Ruling Class Overlord from day #1, and no amount of seeing him in person or on YouTube has mitigated that opinion.
smitty
February 26th, 2012 @ 5:39 am

Libeled? This is the third time or so within this thread that you’ve accused Stacy.
Could we get a URL to an example of an inaccuracy?
richard mcenroe
February 26th, 2012 @ 12:35 pm

Noblesse oblige or mensch -evikism are thin on the ground in most campaigns. If you think most politicians are second raters as people and professionals, you should see the people who make a career out of trying to get them hired.
richard mcenroe
February 26th, 2012 @ 12:38 pm

We need to back off on the ugly Stacy meme a skosh. Yes, I compared him to a hickory walking stick, but hickory walking sticks have character and personality and texture, which was my point.

Plus they’re way tougher than they look.
richard mcenroe
February 26th, 2012 @ 12:39 pm

Of course, I’m saying that a couple years after all the politicians and reporters present at a certain event bolted the table and left the bloggers with the check, so I’m probably over that by now…
Dave
February 26th, 2012 @ 11:04 pm

I doubt it. Romney supporters seem to be mirroring the candidate himself-toss out a scurrilous accusation then scurry away from the resulting uproar allowing the unfounded accusation to take on a patina of validity when in reality it’s baseless. What I really wonder is if Romney believes that this tactic will work in the general. Now he can say “Newt is such and so” and the media scrambles all over itself to publish the accusation against Newt….but when Obama’s the target, I suspect the media will be champing at the bit to challenge Mitt on the statement he just made rather than taking the story national to hurt BHO.