COMMENTARY | Christine O’Donnell, the former candidate for U.S. Senate who was first invited and then uninvited to speak at the tea party rally in Indianola, Iowa, has been invited again to speak, according to Politico.
O’Donnell might be forgiven for wondering why she is considered the flaky one.
The tea party protest movement is thus demonstrating a certain ambivalence toward O’Donnell. On the one hand, she was very much ill-used by both the media and her political handlers during the 2010 campaign and on her current book tour. On the other hand, she has not yet proved ready for prime time by being unable to handle media scrutiny and attacks.
Still, with the publicity of the on-again, off-again invitations to speak, O’Donnell finds herself with an opportunity to shine. A well-delivered speech could work wonders toward repairing her image. But that would only be the beginning, not the end, of her rehabilitation.
Many professional politicians and other public figures put themselves through training on how to deal with the media. People who go through this sort of course of study, whether they are political candidates or captains of industry who deal with the press, learn to deal with hostile questions.
For instance, a surrogate for a media interviewer will conduct a mock interview with the student, peppering him or her with hostile, intrusive questions. Then the student’s performance will be critiqued and the process will repeat until, by process of repetition, the aspiring politico learns to deftly deal with the media without even having to think about it.
Clearly O’Donnell could benefit from such training. Instead of stomping out on the interview with Piers Morgan when he started asking impertinent questions about masturbation, she could have turned it around by asking him whether he asks male candidates on that subject. Thus the interviewer is placed on the defensive on the implications of sexism, not the interviewee on the subject of indiscreet things she said decades ago on “Politically Incorrect.”
The classic example, still studied by students of media and politics, was an interview Dan Rather conducted with Vice President George H. W. Bush in 1988. Rather attempted to ambush Bush about his alleged involvement in the Iran Contra Ssandal. Bush turned it around by reminding Rather of an incident in which he stomped off the set in a snit when a tennis match ran long into his broadcast time, resulting in six minutes of dead air. That is how one deals with the media.
Source: The Tragedy of Christine O’Donnell, Mark R. Whittington, Yahoo News, August 30, 2011
Christine O’Donnell’s Iowa appearance back on, Alexander Burns, Politico, August 31, 2011
20 Years Ago Tonight: Dan Rather’s Failed Ambush of George Bush, Rich Noyes, Newsbusters, January 25, 2008