Some of you may remember the name Roger Mudd. And for good reason. Mudd was a really good journalist and for a time many considered he would be the person to follow Walter Cronkite in the CBS anchor chair. But he didn’t get the job – Dan Rather did, and Roger Mudd never really recovered from that setback. Yet he still had a distinguished career. And one of the moments that made it distinguished did, in some ways, change the way all of us cover elections.
Here's the quick background. Ted Kennedy decided he would take on an incumbent President Jimmy Carter for the 1980 Democratic nomination for President. So in 1979, he agreed to a sit-down interview with Roger Mudd for a CBS News segment. There was enormous interest in the interview as Kennedy was seen, like his assassinated brothers Jack and Bobby before him, as someone who was destined for the White House. He was prepped for the session by the much-heralded Kennedy staff testing him on every possible question. Except one. And it’s the question Mudd started the interview with:
“Senator, why do you want to be President?”
Silence. Kennedy paused. He stumbled. He spurted out some forgettable non-answer. It was a disaster and, in that moment, Kennedy lost the nomination and the presidency. It was as close as he ever came to the top job, and he could thank Roger Mudd for that.
Ever since, that question has become the first thing advisers get their candidates to practice answering. Any candidate. For President. Prime Minister, MP, town councillor. You name it.
Which brings me to one of the current issues Donald Trump has against Kamala Harris.
He says Harris is afraid to do interviews, implying that he himself is a willing participant in the sit-down format. True if it’s to his friends at Fox - not so if it’s with a real news organization.
At least not lately. Wait, you say, he did an X (read Twitter) two-hour session with Elon Musk who has endorsed Trump, donated millions to Trump, and who Trump has implied would make his administration a good Secretary of State. Honest, I’m not making this stuff up.
Watching the highlights of that tech-mired session of Trump mumble jumble with a stunned-looking Musk sharing the screen made me think of a bad imitation of Wayne’s World with Bob and Doug McKenzie. Somebody else said Dumb and Dumber, but that’s not fair. Not fair to Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey.
So, advice for Kamala Harris? Do an interview. But do a real one. Not a phoney Trump one. Prepare properly. And yes, make sure you have an answer for when the interviewer asks you why you’re running.
Here in Canada, the roles are kind of reversed.
Justin Trudeau seems to be doing interviews with almost anyone who asks. Not sure it’s helping much, but no one can say he’s not available. Pierre Poilievre not so much, although lately he’s been showing signs that maybe he’s ready for the big time. We’ll see.
I’ve made a living for years doing interviews, but these days I’ve started to think interviews can be somewhat overrated at election time. While the Republicans are calling for Harris to do some, even one, I don’t exactly hear the American public screaming for them. When’s the last time you heard someone say, “I really want to see an interview with Justin Trudeau”? I do think one or two major interviews during an election campaign are important, but well-organized and well-moderated debates (will we ever have one in Canada?) can offer voters a much better perspective of who the choices are and how they would govern the country.
My views on this have changed over time and I appreciate that others feel very differently. Paul Wells has a smart, thought-provoking piece on the significance of interviews in his Substack this week:
No questions, please, we're winning 🔒
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We lost Chuck Strahl this week. .
A former Conservative MP and cabinet minister, but more importantly I think, a politician who was admired by all – his fellow MPs, opposition MPs, public servants, and his constituents. And yes, even those of us in the media. Best reflections on his career go to Nick Taylor-Vaisey in Politico’s Ottawa Playbook:
Remembering Chuck Strahl
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The Democrats are heading to Chicago this weekend for next week’s official crowning of Kamala Harris as their candidate.
It’s been one remarkable month for the Democrats – who now see their party on top of polls that four weeks ago registered they were looking dismal at best. That was a time when no one liked any of the options before them.
Not so now, as my Good Talk colleague Bruce Anderson writes this week in National Newswatch:
Suddenly, a race that nobody loved, is the race no one can turn away from
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Policy’s Lisa Van Dusen has her take on this as well and, as she always does, she finds the mark.
Harris vs. Trump and the (Joyful) Revenge of Reality
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So, can you name a Democrat who may be just a little miffed by how everything seems to be going their party’s way, at least at this moment? Obviously, Joe Biden must have mixed feelings but think about Hillary Clinton. Philip Elliott of Time did just that:
Clinton Alumni Fume at ‘Double Standard’ of Trump Treatment After Hack
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Here at home, it’s the same old same old for yet another week in Canadian politics. Translation – will he or won’t he, should he, or shouldn’t he?
Couple of good pieces here to chew on, starting with a nice he-said, she-said between Susan Delacourt and Matt Gurney in the Toronto Star:
Are Justin Trudeau’s Liberals tired, stale and out of touch — or just bad communicators? 🔒
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The Star invited contributing columnist Gillian Stewart to weigh in on this as well.
For a historically Liberal paper they’re sure going to town on this story:
Justin Trudeau missed his chance to follow Joe Biden’s lead 🔒
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A couple of northern stories that caught this old northerner’s eye in the last few days
As you probably know, most if not all space missions travel around the earth on a roughly East-to-West path. So why not try North-to-South over the two great polar regions? Well, wait no longer:
Crypto magnate buys SpaceX mission for private polar spaceflight expedition
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As some of you know, I used to live in Churchill, Manitoba back in the late sixties and early seventies.
It was then, and is now, often called the polar bear capital of the world. Living there made you very aware of the bears and the dangers these big, extremely powerful animals could present. Always hungry, they could and did break into homes smashing their way into kitchens looking for accessible food.
But the danger went beyond that. You had to be extremely careful where you went during polar bear season, because when they felt provoked they would attack - and they could kill.
In one of Canada’s far northern communities, so small and so remote that most Canadians have never heard of it, such an incident occurred just last week. Jorge Antunes of Nunatsiaq News wrote about what happened:
Radar station worker dies in polar bear attack on Brevoort Island
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I’m sure that most, if not all, Buzz readers - ever observant and knowledgeable as they are - know who Catherine Tait is.
Just in case there’s someone out there who doesn’t: Tait is the much-maligned President of the CBC. Mind you, she’s caused much of the maligning on herself with her not-so-deft handling of the multimillion-dollar executive bonus story, which she signed off on while sending out layoff notices to the underlings.
It’s hard to know who is enjoying this story the most, Pierre Poilievre who is promising to defund the CBC assuming he gets a majority result in next year’s election, or the CBC bashing Toronto Sun, which loves this story so much it’s almost, wait for it but pick one: ecstatic, intoxicated, fervent, emotive, explosive, fervid, euphoric, delighted or joyful (all of which are accepted synonyms for “orgasmic” which I felt would be in poor taste to use and so, as you can see, I didn’t).
And with that, I give you Mark Daniell of the aforementioned Toronto Sun:
Pierre Poilievre promises to 'defund the CBC' after $18.4M bonus amount revealed
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