COMMENTARY | While on a campaign swing through South Carolina Friday, Minnesota Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann took some time to answer a few questions from reporters. According to Huffington Post, the questioning quickly focused on her many speaking gaffes. She verbally shrugged them off and said that voters were not too worried about her gaffes, but instead were more worried about the economy and jobs. But Bachmann may have also accurately assessed her problem with the media when she said that "the media will report what the media will report."
At the same time, within the statement also lies the problem: The candidate herself. With Bachmann, all there is to report are the many gaffes and misstatements and falsehoods, the occasional bit of controversial background material. Why? Because the candidate herself is not driving the narrative and letting the press have the lead. She is allowing it to be driven for her.
Politicians understand that they are under the watchful eye of the media. It is a political given. Regardless of party affiliation, the media is ever alert for a scandal, a controversy, something to capture an audience's attention. Unfortunately for Rep. Bachmann, she has a long and detailed list of gaffes that include historical inaccuracies, misstatements, and socially questionable pronouncements. And these are in addition to what many perceive as extreme political views.
After speaking to a crowd in Mount Pleasant Friday, Bachmann told reporters that after speaking "six times a day, slipups can occur."
Bachmann earlier in the week got off her tour bus in Spartanburg and told the crowd of faithful that she wanted to wish Elvis Presley a happy birthday. Unfortunately, it was the 34th anniversary of the legendary singer's death. She would later tell reporters that Elvis was still alive in everyone's heart.
She would follow that gaffe with a statement on a radio program where she mentioned the fear of America's decline as opposed to the rise of China, India, and the Soviet Union. However, the Soviet Union hasn't existed since 1991.
The Minnesota Congresswoman, who also happens to be the leader of the Tea Party Caucus in the House of Representatives, told reporters that she corrected her errors, stating that the "the media will report what the media will report, but that goes with the territory when you are running for president of the United States."
Although correct in the assessment of the increased scrutiny on those running for president, Bachmann seemed oblivious to the fact that often she makes the gaffes worse, such as the dancing around the issue with her Elvis gaffe. Back in June, when she was on the eve of announcing her candidacy, she told a reporter in Waterloo, Iowa, that she had the "same spirit" as John Wayne, whom she said once lived there. But he didn't (John Wayne Gacy, the notorious boy-murdering serial killer had lived there for five years, though), and her camp covered that gaffe by revealing that actor John Wayne's parents had lived in Waterloo before he was born. That same week, when asked by George Stephanopoulos on "This Week" if she would like to clarify her remarks that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery (they did not, protecting it in the Constitution, because many owned slaves at the time), she made matters worse by claiming that John Quincy Adams was a Founding Father (he was not, being just a boy at the time) and that he worked to see the end of slavery (he actually died a decade before the "peculiar institution" was ended).
That kind of correcting only feeds the media's appetite for controversy.
Bachmann did note that people seemed to not be paying attention to the gaffes. "The main thing people focus on in every single place I have gone to is the economy," she said Friday. "The main thing they are looking for is who can turn the economy around. Who can make their lives better?"
Bachmann could be correct -- to an extent. But the fact that her home state of Iowa did not pay attention to her gaffes does not mean that the nation does not. Her exciting brand of anti-intellectualism may have fired up Iowans and the tea party base enough to give her a slight victory in the Ames Straw Poll on August 13, but on a national level, she still fails to inspire a significant portion of the Republican voters. A Rasmussen Reports survey conducted on the following Monday (just two days later) placed newcomer Governor Rick Perry of Texas in the overall lead among 2012 Republican contenders by 11 points over former frontrunner Mitt Romney (and 16 over third-place Bachmann).
Bachmann may have touched on a salient point when she brought up the economy, but her sound-bite-geared and talking-points-loaded speeches do not lend themselves well to the development of important issues in the sense that her words might reach media worthiness. If she wishes to see the media stop reporting "what the media will report," she will have to correct her gaffe-prone and extreme-positioned behavior. In doing so, and coming up with real answers -- as opposed to tea party talking points and constant Obama bashing -- to pressing economic and jobs-related issues, she will then be able to better direct the narrative.
What the press reports on Bachmann the candidate rests primarily in her own hands, despite her dismissive remark of the self-interested media. That self-interest is driven by two main factors: what the candidate produces (including everything that has already occurred) and what the media believes its audience wants to access. Speaking to cogent issues and being more careful with what she says could go a long way in getting the press to take her seriously and perhaps eventually steer them away from all the talk of lies and gaffes and extremism. When speaking, making comments and statements should be tirelessly fact-checked before they are uttered, thereby giving the media little to no ammunition with which to continue their disparaging rolling barrage. Admitting that a mistake was a misstatement or a poorly researched topic might help in softening the perception that the Minnesota Congressman is comfortable in preserving her own ignorance. Answering reporters' questions on issues instead of declining to speak to the issue or ignoring the questions altogether would also give reporters more to work with, less to speculate on, and direct matters (hopefully) in a more positive direction.
In short, how the mainstream media treats Bachmann will be up to Bachmann. If she wants the media to stop reporting "what they will report," she has to take control and give the press something else to report. Although certain segments of the media will undoubtedly continue to push their own political agendas (read: MSNBC and Media Matters, among others) with regard to candidate Bachmann, she could directly and positively impact most of her own story should she choose to put forth the effort.
She could start by hiring a fact-checker. And by her own logic, she would most likely benefit from speaking less.
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