Democrat Worldview Clouds Chronicle Reporting

On January 7, the night after their candidates drew for positions on the primary ballots, the Travis County Republican Party endeavored to introduce the local media to the full slate of candidates that the local party has lined up as alternatives to Democrat hegemony in Travis County. A few thoughts on the coverage of the press conference and the state of the media in Travis County:

First, I have to give Austin Chronicle reporter Richard Whittaker credit -- despite his complaints to me about the 9:30 a.m. start time, he was there, right at the starting buzzer, when other reporters from the Statesman, and all the network TV stations were not.
Nowadays, don't confuse reporters with the hard working people who need to to conduct a press conference early in the day so they can get back to work on their real jobs. Republicans have real jobs they're trying desperately to hold onto, despite this poor economy.

Secondly, in his coverage of the event, Whittaker notes that the TCRP's "strategy is clear: to run against the Obama administration." Then he goes on to note how the local party is going to need to run as agents of change in a state that's run by the GOP. But that's where Whittaker (a Brit, I'd guess, by his accent) apparently needs some help in understanding some basics about American politics, so that his supposition isn't so far off : Travis County is a completely blue county, meaning that it is completely controlled and represented by Democrats.

In contrast to Whittaker's mistaken assumption, Travis County Republicans aren't running to change the state government. Instead, the local Republican candidates are running to strengthen what is working already, in one of the few states in the country that isn't a complete economic mess (e.g., California, a completely blue state, its RINO governor included). Removing more Democrats from office could reinforce that trend. Only a Democrat sympathizer would wishfully hope that the Republicans here are running as agents of change against their own Republican establishment in a highly successful state. I think Whittaker's cliched retelling of conventional wisdom is telling -- he's incapable of understanding a differing viewpoint, one that doesn't paint Republican control of government as a bad thing.

Third, and I have to give him credit, Whittaker asked Democrat State Rep Mark Strama about the effect of having to face a Republican candidate in November, despite Strama's handy dispatch of Republican Jerry Mikus in November 2008. Good reporting there, getting an opposing view of a story. Strama told Whittaker he's going to stay a little closer to home this year, instead of running around helping other Democrats in their race.

And there's the real story that Whittaker might focus on -- how will a full Republican slate in Travis County change how Democrats run their campaigns in Austin in 2010? Consider, please, the significant Democrat defeats in New Jersey and Virginia late last year. And Massachusetts' results loom tomorrow. Democrats are running scared. Real scared. It would be very refreshing to see some intellectual honesty and curiosity in a reporter willing to explore the possibility that running against the Obama administration is precisely the ticket to victory.

Of course many small town political reporters don't look beyond the conventional wisdom of Democrat talking points in their own little corner of the world, so it will be interesting to see whether Whittaker's political reporting grows up with these changing times, or whether he's just a flack for the Democrat party's "conventional wisdom."