GOLDFARB REFLECTS…. Michael Goldfarb, who did communications/blogging work for the McCain campaign before returning to the Weekly Standard, sat down for an interesting interview with CJR‘s Kate Klonick about his campaign experiences.
The interview covers quite a bit of ground, and even makes some news — Goldfarb notes that the campaign was, at one point, poised “to throw The New York Times off the plane,” which I hadn’t heard about before.
Goldfarb also notes that he was hired to “attack the press”; he boasted that he was “good at … pissing off the media”; and he “thought from the beginning” that McCain would lose. Goldfarb still thinks Palin was a wise addition to the ticket, and compared The New Yorker covering her selection to having Jane Goodall “writing about fu**ing apes mating in the jungle.”
He added that campaign aides really did go after Palin after the campaign ended, and Goldfarb believes these staffers “are going to pay a real steep price in the long run.”
But what struck me as especially interesting was Goldfarb responding to a question about McCain’s reluctance to go after Obama over Jeremiah Wright. Goldfarb responded:
It’s not for me to second guess how the candidate felt about any particular issue. There are obvious mistakes that were made throughout the campaign. The Rev. Wright issue is of some concern. It was frustrating, because if McCain never mentioned it, the media was going to act like it didn’t exist.
That’s not how I remember it. First, plenty of far-right voices who supported McCain/Palin used the attack throughout the campaign season. Second, the media not only kept talking about Wright, news outlets ran plenty of stories about McCain’s strategy regarding Jeremiah Wright, in the process, talking about Jeremiah Wright.
“If McCain never mentioned it, the media was going to act like it didn’t exist”? I’m afraid Goldfarb has it backwards.
