Too Shy

This has been one of the weirdest campaign seasons that I can remember. While Sarah Palin -- who isn't even running for elected office...now -- scoots around the country and hasn't seen a camera or microphone she would shy away from, far too many candidates are keeping the press at arm's length.

Many major candidates are treating the news media as enemies this year, refusing to release schedules, admit the press to campaign events, give interviews or answer routine questions.

While Republicans appear to be shunning journalists more than Democrats, some Democrats are doing it, too, and journalists are finding it unusually hard to get routine information...

Garnering free press used to be one of the prime objectives of any bona fide candidate. The thinking used to be that free publicity was the most cost effective means to provide as much exposure as possible to potential voters. What could have caused this time-honored strategy to change?

Another factor affects the 2010 equation: At least $3.7 billion is likely to be spent, mostly on ads by campaigns and outside groups this year, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

That means most major campaigns have the resources to blanket the airwaves and phone lines with their one-sided sales pitches...

Those words in bold represent the real danger in the new methodology. While the mainstream press is never truly objective -- generally either leaning to the left or the right -- most, at least, present both (or all) sides of an issue. When the issue is a candidacy for public office, it allows readers and viewers some tools for trying to ascertain the veracity of what the candidates say and do.

If all the public receives are these "one-sided sales pitches," it becomes that much harder to figure out what is true, what is sort of true and what is an outright lie. Since democracy is predicated on a free flow of information, this new strategy -- as Lao Tzu saw clearly over 2,000 years ago -- seeks to undermine genuine democracy and could lead to this nation's downfall.