Political consultants aren't exactly rubbing their hands together and snickering. But as the hired guns look over a landscape of closing newspapers and laid-off investigative reporters, they sense an opening that leaves them both excited and queasy.
One operative told me this week about planting attacks on opponents in partisan blogs, knowing the stories could bleed into mainstream news outlets, without leaving any incriminating fingerprints. Another described how he got green reporters to write stories (no campaign cash wasted!) on ads that the candidate had no intention of ever paying to put on TV.
"They don't know any better," the consultant chuckled. "So we can get away with that one again."
The political pros I interviewed talked about stories missed and questions not asked. But they were not entirely gleeful. These are consultants who care about more than just winning. (Hard to believe, but it's true.)
They know better than anyone what happens when the gatekeepers go missing.
"Imagine driving along [Interstate] 5. There used to be a couple highway patrolmen to keep people in line. Now they're gone and everyone knows it," said Chris Lehane, a veteran Democratic consultant. "It can devolve into a Mad Max situation pretty quickly."
The diminution of mainstream news outlets and constant attacks on their credibility leave us confused about where to turn for information about our leaders, agreed Dan Schnur, a one-time Republican consultant who directs USC's Jesse Unruh Institute of Politics.
"Technology and blogs and the like make it much easier to get information out," he said. "But what is missing is the credibility that comes with that message coming through the mainstream media."
Newspapers continue, to a degree, in their historical role of driving and shaping political debate. But they've slashed their staffs, often losing the most experienced (and highest-paid) reporters, because of a ghastly recession and advertising lost to the Internet.
The severity of the problem is hard to assess. How do you get your arms around what hasn't been written?
But the politicos had a few guesses about stories that have been missed or underplayed.
How about more on former state Sen. President Pro Tem Don Perata's slippery diversion of contributions away from a campaign to defeat a ballot initiative and into his personal legal defense fund?
