McCain’s ‘Free Ride’

This week the New York Times made news with a front-page story on John McCain's relationship with a telecommunications lobbyist. The story hinted at a possible romantic entanglement and raised questions about the propriety of McCain's dealings with the lobbyist and her clients at a time when the Arizona lawmaker was chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. The story, which McCain's campaign has vigorously disputed, marked a rare incidence of bad press for a politician who has enjoyed a remarkably amicable relationship with the establishment media over the course of his 25-year career. Other than a flurry of critical stories surrounding his involvement in a savings-and-loan scandal in the late 1980s, McCain has enjoyed such positive coverage he sometimes jokingly refers to the press as his base.

It's hardly a coincidence, says Paul Waldman, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a left-leaning nonprofit research center that analyzes conservative "misinformation" in the media. Along with founder David Brock, Waldman has spent the last three years studying the relationship between the press and politicians. Waldman and Brock were so struck by McCain's cozy relationship with the press corps that they decided to write a book about it. "Free Ride: John McCain and the Media" (due out next month) holds that McCain has managed to ingratiate himself with the national media to an extent almost unheard of in modern politics. As a result, says Waldman, McCain has been able to create a glossy image untarnished by what he sees as some damning facts. In the aftermath of the Times piece, Waldman spoke with NEWSWEEK's Matthew Philips. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Do you see this Times piece as the first shot across McCain's bow?
Paul Waldman: Yes, but it's just one. We won't know how much traction it'll get for a while, since, barring some catastrophe, he'll be the [GOP] nominee. Then, hopefully, he'll be subject to more coverage that goes beyond the boilerplate, but I'm not counting on it. I'd like to think this story will open the door to really dig into this disconnect between his record and image. But that's not been the case over the last 15 years.

Were you surprised by the inclusion of allegations of him having an affair without much evidence to substantiate it?
Considering there's been so little negative press for McCain, it's not surprising that they led with the salacious stuff. But the real story is that he had these kinds of relationships with these lobbyists while he was chair of the Commerce Committee. He got millions of dollars from corporations he was regulating. So here, in this case, he was meeting with lobbyists, in particular this woman [Vicki] Iseman, flying around on corporate jets and urging the commission to take action on the sale of a TV station in Pittsburgh they had an interest in. The chair of the FCC said it was inappropriate. That's the kind of thing reporters report on all the time, but the cynical eye gets closed when it comes to McCain.

Why is that? Is it just that he's a likable 'straight talker'? Or are we all suckers?
It's both. You have to understand that the way McCain deals with the national media is a strategy. He realized that reporters want to be treated differently than the way most politicians treat them, which is very carefully and being measured with what they say, going off the record a lot. And that's frustrating for reporters. What McCain figured out was not to be careful, not to go off the record, to return their calls and talk about anything for as long as they wanted. And the results have paid off very handsomely for him, because he gets the benefit of the doubt all the time.

From a reporter's standpoint, shouldn't access and candor be rewarded?
It's an interesting point, but only to a certain degree. It doesn't mean that the fact that he had a discussion on, say, Iraq, with you while throwing back a couple of beers in the back of his bus and you now think he's a great guy … that the next day there should be a halo over the whole thing, over the story you write. But that's what happens, time and again. And it doesn't have anything to do with people's personal politics. It's the personal feelings, especially in that small circle of D.C. reporters, the personal relationships that trump the substantive policy issues. Which is why he's been given a pass on his campaign lacking in substance. There's no question he's run the least substantive campaign; most people are hard pressed to say what he wants to do.