Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) has embarked on a whirlwind media tour to beat back the puppy-shooting scandal that threatens to kill her political career.
There are few better fights for a Republican to pick than a brawl with the media. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s stern rebuke of a debate moderator won him the 2012 South Carolina primary. It was one of only two states he won that year and the first time South Carolina failed to back the winning candidate for the GOP presidential nomination since Ronald Reagan beat Gerald Ford at a state convention in 1976.
Reagan won the 1980 New Hampshire primary after a single-sentence dismissal of a debate moderator: “I am paying for this microphone, Mr. Green!” Reagan didn’t even have to get the moderator’s name right — it was the Nashua Telegraph’s Jon Breen — on his road to the White House.
Noem is testing whether these old dogs still hunt, this time in the form of a media tour promoting the book, No Going Back, that originally contained the anecdotes causing her troubles. She went on CBS’ Face the Nation to spar with host Margaret Brennan.
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“This morning in our 15-minute interview, Margaret Brennan interrupted me 36 times — once every 25 seconds on average,” Noem posted on social media afterward, adding that liberals like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) are permitted to speak without interruption.
“In the fake news media, there are two sets of rules, and conservative are always treated differently,” Noem posted. “That’s why Americans don’t trust the Fake News.”
The title of Noem’s book, No Going Back, is itself a reference to not returning to pre-2016 Republican political norms, when GOP leaders were faulted for being too deferential to the media. “Fake news” is one of former President Donald Trump’s favorite catchphrases, rivaling “build the wall.”
Yet so far, Noem’s media offensive hasn’t turned the tide. She tried in a Fox Business interview to keep the focus on Trump and his New York hush-money trial amid Stuart Varney’s persistent — dogged? — inquiries about whether her dog revelations had extinguished her vice presidential hopes.
“Enough, Stuart,” Noem finally said after her bobbing and weaving didn’t slow down Varney’s combination of canine questions. “This interview is ridiculous, what you are doing right now.” The host said he would stop, but only because they were out of time. “Oh, well of course we are,” she shot back.
But Varney isn’t as unsympathetic a figure to conservative audiences as Jim Acosta, Dan Rather, Sam Donaldson or even Margaret Brennan. And while it is difficult to predict how the mercurial Trump will respond to a media firestorm, having weathered so many of them himself, multiple Republican operatives told the Washington Examiner that they doubt Noem is helping herself.
One Republican strategist said that Noem’s vice presidential chances are “deader than her dog.”
Conservatives circled the wagons around a winner of the Republican veepstakes, then Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, when the media pursued her. Like Noem, she was a relatively young and telegenic Republican female governor with strong conservative credentials — and therefore an enticing running mate for a septuagenarian presidential nominee.
“She is now the most popular governor in America, with an approval rating in the 90s, and probably the most popular public official in any state,” Fred Barnes wrote of Palin in 2007.
“It’s not just that she’s pretty and young,” Barnes quoted a Republican pollster as saying of Palin. “She’s really smart. And there’s no guile. She says her favorite meal is moose stew or mooseburgers. It wouldn’t shock people if that were true.”
While John McCain’s selection of Palin the following year is often panned in hindsight, at first it looked like he breathed new life into his campaign. Palin was electric on the stump, exciting conservatives who were neither enamored with McCain nor what increasingly looked like a demoralizing slog of a race against Barack Obama. Her speech at the Republican National Convention was well received.
Yet the glare of the media spotlight proved too much. If McCain’s veep choice was the political equivalent of a game-changing touchdown on a Hail Mary attempt, Palin’s interview with Katie Couric was like having the pass ruled incomplete on review. Palin’s fight against the media did keep conservatives in her corner through Election Day and for several years after the unsuccessful campaign. But she never returned to her previous heights.
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A Palin-like “Mama Grizzly” affectation is likely why Noem told the dog story in the first place. Noem’s task is more challenging than Palin’s because the criticism has been bipartisan. The fact that others are still vying for the place on the Republican ticket Noem seemingly desires will keep would-be competitors from coming to her aid.
Still, it is possible that Republican primary voters will have sympathy for Noem as media interviewers keep grilling her about Cricket and Kim Jong Un. It’s worth a shot. As the book title says, there’s no going back now.