why deny to the press on record?

[ag]

Can somebody explain to me, why on earth does the McCain campaign make the news where no news should be made? The rumors that appear on the blogs and in tabloids do not get into the mainstream media: they stay in their ghettos, which, arguably, limits their currency. But if the campaign bothers to respond to them, they are all over. In the "pregnant daughter" story, at least, you could argue that the rumor was much more damaging then truth and could be convincingly contradicted by the actual fact of pregnancy (which, probably, couldn't be concealed till november anyway).

But now we have an example number 2, and it seems thoroughly unjustified. Not even this forum had picked up on this, I believe - now it's in WP. Why responding?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/03/mccain_aide_rips_tabloid_repor.html

[Ban my account ffs!]

I couldn't agree more.  McCain's campaign should have kept their mouths shut about it.  Now it's going to blow up.

I see the tabloids every week because my store sells them.. and there's a lot of stupid crap in them that is obviously not true... and nothing is said about it unless the people get overly defensive, which usually implies some sort of truth (though I don't think it does in this case)...

Ugh.. this is getting so old so fast.

[cp]

Well, actually that story is being covered on the forum here:
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=82157.0

As for your initial question, the conventional wisdom is that if there's a story out there that even has a whiff of legitimacy you have to get out in front of it. If you face it head on, deal with it (denial, confirmation, whatever) then you control the information that goes out and gets printed and you also get to contain it within your own narrative. YOU become the authority on the matter. The alternative is to let it grow without any input from your side, which could become very bad very quickly.

In a case like Palin and the various rumours this is a double-edged sword. Because Palin is so new it's essential that the McCain team get their narrative about her out as quickly and frequently as possible. However, because the substance of the stories is so lurid (I'm not saying they're true or false) 'dealing' with it tends to fan the flames rather than douse them.

[Democratic Hawk]

Who the hell takes the National Enquirer seriously?

[Ban my account ffs!]

Apparently the McCain campaign takes it seriously enough to get all up in arms about the article they ran.

It's the Enquirer... they don't even dig up your dirt, they just throw their own dirt at you to try and get a reaction... and when you react like the McCain camp has, it only legitimizes their story whether it's true or not.

[J. J.]

Who the hell takes the National Enquirer seriously?

John Edwards.

The GOP is playing the press.

Next item:  Sarah Palin is the Borg Queen.  

[ag]

Well, actually that story is being covered on the forum here:
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=82157.0

As for your initial question, the conventional wisdom is that if there's a story out there that even has a whiff of legitimacy you have to get out in front of it. If you face it head on, deal with it (denial, confirmation, whatever) then you control the information that goes out and gets printed and you also get to contain it within your own narrative. YOU become the authority on the matter. The alternative is to let it grow without any input from your side, which could become very bad very quickly.

Well, the story came up on the forum while I was typing my post - it wasn't here an hour ago. And the first link is on a cbs report that is reporting the denial: before the denial nobody had picked it up here.

And, the thing is: conventionally speaking, there had been no story out there at all.  The "real" news media didn't report on it, period - they didn't because a report in the National Enquirer is not a story, absent an independent confirmation. John Edwards didn't have to deny anything until he had to fess up .  And, until he had to fess up most people didn't hear of the rumors. To the extent there were media inquiries, they were dealt with off the record.

Even now, the story is not that Palin had an affair - the story is that McCain campaign is denying she had an affair. Until an hour ago most people would not put the words "Palin" and "affair" in the same sentence: now everybody has seen it, courtesy of the Republican party itself. If this is not a case of shaky nerves, I don't know what it is.