How Russert Impacted the Primary: A Footnote to History

Tim Russert has been broadly praised for his neutrality and objectivity questioning politicians on Meet the Press. Yet, even the evenhanded can skew outcomes.

For this primary season Russert provided an open invitation to all presidential candidates, Democrats and Republicans, to appear for an hour on Meet the Press. For the first half hour, Tim asked mostly substantive policy questions.

For the second half hour, he "Russerted" them, asking about prior actions or inconsistencies. He did this to everyone. Some--such as campaign contributions from questionable sources--seemed potentially relevant to a candidate's character and credibility. Others, such as questioning Richardson for mistaking when he was 17 years old a verbal offer from a scout for a contract to play professional baseball, seemed a bit tangential to his likely conduct of the presidency.

Everyone, but one. Hillary Clinton was still the "inevitable" nominee and had decided not to appear on the Sunday programs. But, the pressure mounted, and then, one Sunday, she appeared on all of them. All from her home, not the studios. One morning, similar questions, her in control, over and done with. Just one half-hour each.

There was an unmistakable message conveyed. The Clintons called the shots. Hillary Clinton was likely to be President, and networks that did not go along faced the prospect of 8 years of second-rate status for access.

Russert went along. He interviewed Hillary for a half hour, and it was all substance-policy. She provided sufficiently long-winded answers to questions such as why she voted against the Levin Amendment that would have required Bush to come back to Congress for war authorization if the UN inspections were deemed inadequate that there was not much time to pursue her mischaracterizations of the amendment, and it was not clear that Russert really knew, right then, what she had said was wrong.

That was it. Or, was it?

It so happened that the next "debate" of the cycle was moderated by...you guessed it, Williams and Russert. In that session Russert waved sheets of paper asking Hillary about her tax records, the Clinton Library/Foundation records and records from the White House that documented her activities.

It was also in this debate that the first chink in the armor of inevitability arose--Hillary's version of "I was for it before I was against it" on the question of drivers licenses for undocumented aliens.

That is, Russert was using the time in the debate for questions he would have asked on Meet the Press but could not because the Clintons had succeeded to that point in not playing by the same "rules" as all the others. Hillary would have been far better off if she had done the full hour on MTP, and handled those questions, before a much smaller audience, and without her comrades to pick up the ball and run with it.

Bias? It seemed to this observer that Russert was angry at being manipulated, and showing he had remedies even if his network would kowtow to Hillary's inevitability as they had to Bush in the run-up to the Iraq War.

I believe that is part of the larger story of bias in the media that arose, not entirely but in part, because of the heavy-handed manner in which her campaign treated the media. Under those circumstances, once one chink in the armor is revealed, others inevitably(!) emerge.

What part did Tim's pique play in the unraveling of the Clinton juggernaut?

A footnote to history.

Comments

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Wow, of all the angles on Russert, "gotcha" journalism, or "personality" journalism was one of my own gripes about him.

And if indeed that personal foible impacted the future of our country, that is NOTHING to extoll, even if accurate.

Journalists are supposed to report the news, not BE the news.

To THAT point, we can always rehash Russert's involvement in Plamegate.

And yes, this is neither the time nor the place.

[PaulAbrams]

no value judgment was intended

[outnow]

De mortui, nil nisi bonum. (about the dead, nothing but good). So much for Tim.

Right you are, Paul. Hillary was not "inevitabl­e." Nor is the permanent Republican majority. This is what we all have to combat. Like it or not Obama is the presumptive candidate. The Clintons had their chance but they "triangula­ted." Nothing is left but Obama. We have a slate of issues. The progressive issues are the ISSUE, not the man or woman.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Paul,
Thanks for saying so.
In fairness, such did cross my mind, but (with apologies) only after I'd hit the send button.
Best.

[XME]

"Journalists are supposed to report the news, not BE the news."

Journalists don't create what is news, and his involvment in that was by circumstance, not because he simply wanted to BE the news. Just as his death IS news, and certainly not by his choice.

[Magee]

Russert's actions during the October debate did, as you point out, provide the first questions about Hillary's inevitability and permitted the other candidates to attack her. However, you've reversed the power issue here. Russert was the one holding the power. He hated Hillary from long ago, and was bound and determined to bring her down. No wonder she avoided him. He did succeed. Too bad he doesn't get to revel in it.

[polly14]

I see you've bought into Clinton's victim angle. If the media (Russert included) was harder on Clinton than Obama it was because she deserved it. Her arrogance and underhanded campaigning techniques, combined with a very poorly run campaign was her downfall. Hillary Clinton lost because of Hillary Clinton. No amount of blaming the dead is going to change the fact that she was a poor candidate. Clinton thought she was above the rules because she was the wife of a former president. Well, guess what, she still lost.

[1stRepublic14thStar]

Oh, and no one who supports or works for Obama ever said or did anything "negative" with regards to Hillary Clinton?

How about when Obama gave Clinton "the finger"? Don't tell me he didn't. I saw his gesture, I saw the crowd's reaction and I saw his counter reaction.

How about the Obama campaign's radio ads in Mississippi that falsely claimed Clinton had called Mississippians "second class"? She never said that.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Look, the primaries are over. Obama will be nominated. Clinton has conceded. Fine. I'll vote for Obama because there's no way I can support someone like McCain who's all over the map with his Iraq comments, with the one he repeats most often being that he has no problem with an open ended military commitment.

But I'm NOT under the illusion that Obama walks on water or can turn water into wine.

[1stRepublic14thStar]

Oh PLEASE! Hillary Clinton never considered herself "inevitable". The pundit class, including Russert, built her up just so they could tear her down later. In February 2007 there were polls that showed Clinton with 36 percent, Obama at 24, John Edwards at 11, and Al Gore at 10. Clinton went from 41 percent the month before Obama indicated that he would be a candidate to 36 percent after Obama made his intentions known. At the time, Clinton's favorability rating was 49 percent, with a 48 unfavorable. Obama's ratings were 53 percent favorable impression and 30 percent unfavorable. How's that "inevitable"? Clearly this race was competitive from the very beginning and more competitive as soon as Obama became a candidate, and just as clearly the front runners (PLURAL) from the beginning were Clinton AND Obama.

[PaulAbrams]

Your points about the polls are good, and there are even stronger ones to make.
However, to conclude from that that Hillary did not consider herself inevitable is to ignore entirely her several comments that "it will be all be over on Feb 5th". Those comments were made with the very clear implication that, after Feb 5th, only she would be left standing.
It is also to ignore her entire campaign strategy: move up the primaries (her people drove that), knock them out with money and organization, and they had no plan B after feb 5th was indecisive. They also spent like bandits on food and hotels and all those things you do not do if you think it will be a war of attrition.
I was a the netroots meeting a year ago...all the candidates spoke, and Hillary was hardly the favorite. She defended lobbyists at that event. But, she said, to paraphrase, "look, I know some of you don't like this, but I know you will all be with me after the primaries"­....
So, yes, both she and the campaign assumed she was the inevitable nominee. But, I also restate that you are even more correct than you know about the polls.

[1stRepublic14thStar]

Well, what candidate is going to say "I suck, I'm not going to win, don't vote for me?"

And what candidate or team who wins wants to sound like they regarded themselves as inevitable? You can almost guarantee that the winner will say "no one thought we could do it, but we believed in ourselves.­.."

Anyone at the start or in the midst of any kind of contest is going to try to sound viable -- like a winner. Trying to sound like a winner is not the same as thinking you're inevitable.

In this case I think that suggests Clinton didn't take Obama seriously. I think she did. There might be more than one reason why she didn't win. I just came back from the first phase of Army command and general staff college, and the main lesson is that if you get the objective and the strategy wrong at the start, all the tactical and technical proficiency in the world won't matter. I just think that underestimating Obama is not a reason Clinton lost, because he was always regarded as a major candidate and a possible nominee.

[1stRepublic14thStar]

Well, for someone who allegedly had no Plan B for after Super Tuesday, Hillary Clinton sure showed some strength. Once she got past the period from early February to early March she kept right on winning, even taking contests on the last day of the primary/caucus schedule.

[raker3]

what about katie curic's interview with hillary where she denied ever entertaining the possibility that she could lose? that's not considering herself inevitable?

[SethBLiNK]

The difference is that Obama out and out said, I'm not the candidate yet, when all the indications pointed to him being the candidate. At the same time, Hillary was insisting that the popular vote should count, that Florida and Michigan results were completely legit and even if fully counted, could reverse the deligate count (they couldn't) and riled up her supporters.

However, when the roles were reversed, Hillary never spoke up and said, I haven't won this thing yet. She didn't cause the assumptions, but she was happy to have them.

[Bodhisattava]

The same arrogance was in display when she made a big point of appearing in a special TV show to make her exit and followed it up by summoning Barack Obama to her friend Diane Feinstein's home in a hush-hush manner to discuss the terms of her surrender.

All in all, a woman who believes who is more equal than all the others.

[1stRepublic14thStar]

Hillary Clinton "summoned" Barack Obama? Book, chapter and verse, please.

I saw Candy Crowley on CNN talking to Anderson Cooper. Cooper asked Crowley to talk about the significance of Obama going to Clinton's house to talk to her. Crowley went on and on about how Obama might be making a goodwill gesture and might be making a concession to her feelings by going to see her. OOPS! The event really happened at Senator Feinstein's house -- there couldn't have been any symbolism behind Obama going to Clinton's house, because Obama didn't go to Clinton's house. Yet there's Crowley's rank speculation and conjecture masquerading as journalism still hanging in the air.

[111]

For a long time I didn't understand Russert's style. I thought he was soft on our government leaders but then I started to understand the subtle nature of how he allowed these politicians to really hang themselves. The first time I saw this was when he interviewed David Duke who was running for the Governor of Louisiana. He disarmed these people, made them feel at ease, make their talking points and then very gently confronted them with what they had done or said in the past or asked them pertinent questions he knew they would be unable to answer.

I am sorry he will not be here for the GE to interview Obama and McCain.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Gotcha journalism. Whoopee.

[happyblackman]

That's not gatcha journalism, it's getting the candidate to reveal the truth about themselves. I did not watch that episode, but I remember my father; who watche MTP religiously, talking about it. Duke was leading in the polls to become governor of Louisiana, he was a Nazi, and - if you beleived it at the time- "former" member of the kkk. His whole candidacy was built around a seperatist platform, that would have decimated the state's citizens. All of them, not just blacks and other minorites, because major corporations were going to up and leave.

His public stance was that he was not running his campaigin on race, but on other issues like jobs, the economy and so on. Russert asked him if he could name the top three employers in the state, since his campaign was not based on race.

Duke couldn't!

Call it gotcha journalism if you want. That day, Russert exposed a racist for what he really was.

[apoyo]

What goes around comes around.

[conniedogs]

Was he on her list?

[JXB]

Incisive stuff, Mr. Abrams, and yet another example of how poor the strategic and tactical decision making was in the Clinton campaign. Arrogance is not the way to foster political support.