The Washington Report – September 19, 2014

WHY YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT THE PERSONAL LIVES OF POLITICIANS The Fix writes, “Matt Bai has a fascinating piece in the New York Times magazine based on this simple but profound idea: Ever since the unmasking of Colorado Sen. Gary Hart as an adulter in 1987, political journalists have become obsessed in extremis with proving the men and women running for president are not-so-good people. (That’s a slight oversimplification but not much of one.) Here’s the key paragraph in Bai’s piece, which is an excerpt from a forthcoming book titled “All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid”:

“As an industry, we aspired chiefly to show politicians for the impossibly flawed human beings they are: a single-minded pursuit that reduced complex careers to isolated transgressions. As the former senator Bob Kerrey, who has acknowledged participating in an atrocity as a soldier in Vietnam, told me once, “We’re not the worst thing we’ve ever done in our lives, and there’s a tendency to think that we are.” That quote, I thought, should have been posted on the wall of every newsroom in the country, just to remind us that it was true.”

Bob Kerrey — and, by extension, Matt Bai — are absolutely right.  No politician should be covered solely through the lens of the worst/most embarrassing thing they’ve ever done. THAT SAID … it doesn’t mean that the focus on the personal is completely misguided or corrosive to politics, journalism or both. RICHARD BEN CRAMER, who wrote “What it Takes” a magnum opus on the 1988 campaign, in which he details the rise and fall of Hart had a unique approach writing about politicians and politics more generally. While most reporters were talking to the press secretary or the campaign manager, Richard went to the candidate’s hometown. He sat in the living rooms where these men grew up.  He talked to their mothers, their brothers, the long-forgotten best friends of their youth.  He wasn’t looking for Hart’s “Monkey Business” scandal; what he was doing was trying to understand what made these people — who had the audacity to put themselves forward as the single best person in the country to represent it — tick. He was pilloried by colleagues – for this radically different approach to what constituted campaign reporting at the time – but as the years went on, his book became viewed…as a masterpiece. PAST IS PROLOGUE (h/t Shakespeare) It was an attempt to understand the life experiences — successes and failures — that shaped these people, under the belief that grasping those experiences told the public far more about what sort of president they would be than simply consuming the reams of press releases, canned statements and speeches that the candidates and their campaigns were shoveling. TO BE CLEAR … Matt Bai’s argument is that the pendulum that was once heavily tipped in the direction of never writing about a candidate’s personal life (see JFK) has swung too far in the other direction. The GOTCHA CULTURE has turned some political coverage into treating any slip/gaffe/misstatement as THE NEXT BIG THING.

THE TRIALS OF DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ Politico reports, “Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is in a behind-the-scenes struggle with the White House, congressional Democrats and Washington insiders who have lost confidence in her as both a unifying leader and reliable party spokesperson at a time when they need her most. Long-simmering doubts about her have reached a peak after two recent public flubs: criticizing the White House’s handling of the border crisis and comparing the tea party to wife beaters. …The perception of critics is that Wasserman Schultz spends more energy tending to her own political ambitions than helping Democrats win.”

REPUBLICANS LEADERS SETTLING IN Politico reports, “Tensions in House Republican leadership were once so fraught that aides and allies were constantly keeping track of who was looking to knife whom. But now, top lawmakers will go home [today]comfortable in their position, with most of their rivals quiet and their operations gearing up for the next Congress. The government is funded – for now – and controversial legislation is shelved until well past the midterm elections and the next leadership race. For the first time in years, the power structure is remarkably solid and drama free within the House Republican Conference – a dynamic that’s evident from the top to bottom of the House.”

Our very own Maggie Moore’s BLOG POST on the ‘Future of the House GOP Leadership.’

OBAMACARE:  FROM GAME CHANGER TO BACKGROUND NOISE “[E]ven Republicans who still believe it’s a significant issue … can’t point to races that are likely to be decided on the health care law alone. … Now, the health care law is taking a back seat to continuing anxieties about the economy and newer crises … The growing attention to the ISIL threat … ‘has certainly taken some of the “ouch” out of Obamacare,’ … said GOP ad maker Fred Davis.” (WashPo)

ANYONE TALKING ABOUT MINIMUM WAGE? NYTimes, “… The Democrats’ strategy of making an increase in the minimum wage a midterm election rallying cry has been drowned out by world events. The party continues to talk about it, but it appears that few are listening.”

THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIBERAL AND CONSERVATIVE PARENTS The Fix writes, “When it comes to child-rearing, American parents are largely on the same page — regardless of their political beliefs. Except when it comes to two things: religion and tolerance. As the chart from the Pew Research Center shows, conservative parents are much less interested than liberal parents in teaching their children about tolerance, while liberal parents are far less interested in instilling religious faith. No other values tested by Pew come close to those gaps.”