Last week Chuck Todd made himself the story by arguing that Alison Lundergan Grimes "disqualified" herself in her Senate race against Mitch McConnell because she refused to tell Todd or anyone else who she had voted for in 2008 and 2012. Todd's pronouncement made its way into a six-figure McConnell ad buy currently airing in Kentucky that portrays Grimes as dishonest for failing to reveal her vote. The ad highlights Todd's "verdict" on Grimes' character and qualifications and effectively makes Todd the spokesman for the McConnell campaign.
If Todd's question was a legitimate one to begin with this would be nothing new. Campaigns regularly run spliced news clips and "gotcha" moments with political correspondents in grainy campaign ads. But Todd's was not a legitimate question, and even treating it as a legitimate question shows an appalling lack of comprehension for our electoral process and the foundation of our democratic process.
There is a reason that the curtain shuts behind us when we vote. The reason is to prevent intimidation and coercion. People are free to make up their own minds and choose a candidate without having to contend with the judgment of others entering into the process. Even people who wear their preferred candidates names on their sleeves walking into the booth are afforded the opportunity of privacy. It's a time honored tradition in this country for the media to cover a candidate entering and exiting the voting booth, and it's just as time-honored a tradition for the candidate to jokingly demur when asked, by a perhaps too clever reporter, "who [he or she] voted for." That is such an obvious facet of the American system it should be --and is--intuitive to nearly all Americans. Before last week, it seemed to be intuitive to the U.S. media as well.
The sanctity of the voting booth protects against an intrusion into our duties as American citizens. We don't design the voting process so someone can look over our shoulder and take notes. This protection from intrusion on our political lives is the reason why we look at the acts of a Joseph McCarthy with such revulsion and contempt.
Until now, it seems.
Chuck Todd should ask himself whether he can conceive of Walter Cronkite, John Chancellor, David Brinkley or even Tom Brokaw refusing to take "no" for an answer to such a question, let alone deem it appropriate to comment on the candidates' refusal to answer, or even worse, deign to make a judgment about the candidate's character when he or she refuses to answer.
In an interview conducted last week with Media Matters in which he attempts to explain himself, Todd unconvincingly attributes his action to a frustration he feels with the political process:
Earlier this month, Todd argued that Grimes had "disqualified herself" as a candidate when she refused to answer whether she had voted for President Obama. His comments were quickly turned into a statewide television ad by Senator McConnell's reelection team.
Asked about having his comments turned into a political ad, Todd stood by his critique of Grimes and her alleged obfuscation, though admitted his wording was "sloppy" because he had been trying to suggest that it was Kentucky voters who would decide that Grimes had disqualified herself.
Pressed on what types of things should disqualify a political candidate - like, for example, McConnell's dismissal of climate science - Todd was elusive, saying that candidates being "caught lying" is a red flag, but that it should be up to voters to make those calculations, not reporters.
Asked directly by
Media Matters about the Grimes questioning, Todd's response was--shall we say--
less than coherent:
TODD: It turned into a lively discussion. Look, I don't like being part of a political campaign.
MEDIA MATTERS: Right, and then you were in the ad.
TODD: And I don't like -- you know, and it gives me heartburn. All right? It gives me -- it makes me, you know, literally physically ill.
MEDIA MATTERS: Ooh.
TODD: No, I mean, it's just because you don't want to be in that position.
MEDIA MATTERS: Sure.
TODD: You don't want to -- I wasn't trying to inject in the race. I'll admit to have hit a sort of a -- you hit a tipping point where you get so worn down by politicians constantly bullsh-- you know, obviously obfuscating. Like, in such a ham-handed way, you're like -- and, you know,we in general don't call that out enough. Right? That is a big critique of the media. It's a fair critique, right? There's this line -- it's like, why do we have such a high tolerance on quote-unquote talking points, right, in general. And should our -- should we have less tolerance for that? I agree we should have less tolerance. On one hand, I think it's important for somebody like -- one of the things that I want to combat on the whole talking points front is, part of me -- when I introduce a guest, I almost want to get their talking points out of the way. Almost,like, want to run a montage. Like, I know what you've said on this, now let's drill deeper, right? To try to at least speed up the interview sometime. Because I think it's -- look, I understand -- like, I sort of -- I'm conflicted on it, right? On one hand, you want to let them get their view across one time. Right? That would be my argument. You let them get their -- and at the same time, you also don't -- if it's obvious that it's just like, "What is going" -- you know, like, "This is ridiculous." And I think we've all gotten tired of that. So -- and I'll say this, I think I was shorthanding the "disqualify" line a little bit, meaning, I think that that type of statement to some voters is going to feel like she's disqualifying herself because she's not being straight with the voters, and at the end of the day, honest and trustworthy. You know what I mean? You've got to cross that --
I suppose this is what passes for an apology--an admission that he "shorthanded" the question. It's difficult to charitably interpret this soup of disorganized thought, but one thing is clear--Todd has never given a thought to whether the question was an appropriate one to be asking any American--political candidate or otherwise-- or not. It never even occurred to him that a political candidate ought not to be compelled to disclose his/her activities in the voting booth, in effect, relinquish his rights as an American, simply because one chooses to run for office.
Pressed on the topic, Todd remains oblivious to this salient point:
MEDIA MATTERS: What do you say -- what do you think is the standard for saying someone's disqualified? I mean, things like Mitch McConnell doesn't believe in --
TODD: My point is, it's up to a voter.
MEDIA MATTERS: -- global warming or others --
TODD: My point is it's up to the -- the voters make that decision, not me.
MEDIA MATTERS: Right, but you're the one who mentioned it.
TODD: And I understand. Like I said, I was shorthanding it, and I -- what I -- that, to me -- I think a lot of voters are going to say that that was a -- like, this is ridiculous, and now you're just trying to pull the wool over my eyes. This is kind of silly. And to voters, that's a -- there's different -- look, voters disqualify candidates for various reasons. I was -- you can accuse me of being sloppy, of putting the words in my mouth and I should have put the words in the -- in how this will impact, impact voters and impact the race. And, you know, that's where I was sloppy. I don't take back the analysis. I mean, I think it's -- I think that -- you know, I think it was -- I think she had run -- she's been running a poor campaign. I don't understand how she's not made this about Mitch McConnell. Like, I'm still -- for the life of me, I don't get how this is not a referendum on him. Right? And you know, that's -- I mean, you know, that's clearly what the voters wanted to make it. So I -- you know, and, you know, so you critique the campaign, but I think this was a -- you know, it's one of those -- campaigns have moments.
So Todd becomes the accuser--his gaffe, his ignorance and his reckless disregard for the democratic process is not his fault--it's the fault of Alison Lundergan Grimes for running what he characterizes as a "poor campaign." A campaign that is currently well within the margin of error to defeat the Senate Minority leader.
Todd seems oblivious to irony as well:
"We are living in a guilty-until-proven-innocent society these days, when it comes to gotcha journalism, and gotcha politics," he said. "And there's going to be some good people that have their reputations ruined. It used to be an anomaly when that happened, I think it's going to be more frequent until all of us clean up our act a little bit."
Taking their cue from the McConnell ad,
other campaigns, egged on by various media sources, have loudly demanded that their opponents disclose their voting records. Thus far the "accusations" seem to be directed at those who ostensibly voted for President Obama, but it will be most interesting in 2016 when this new tactic is employed, for example, against those who voted for certain actions by his predecessor.
Many have expressed opinions on what candidate Grimes "should" or "should not" have said in the name of political expediency. But expediency shouldn't be the touchstone when our fundamental rights are being cavalierly cast aside in the name of "journalism." Political candidates can and will accuse each other of voting or not voting for anyone, they can freely elect to disclose their vote if they wish, and the "voters", whom Todd appears to hold in such high regard, are perfectly capable of discerning who and what to believe. But it is not the role of supposedly objective journalists to make that judgment or, more importantly, to make it some kind of "imperative."