Amid the constant screech of back-to-back Chris Christie “Bridgegate” coverage, it was one of the more magnanimous and elegant responses a politician could make to rapid fire questions on the topic: “I don’t know.”
That was the shrug-and-step method employed by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-MD) during a recent broadcast of CNN’s State of the Union. Host Candy Crowley couldn’t contain herself, eager to draw a guard-dropping moment from both a sitting governor and frequently mentioned candidate for 2016. O’Malley just didn’t feel like it, perhaps because he’d been too busy to pay attention (unlike the Mayor of the largest city in his state who had much to say about it on Meet the Press that same day) or because he’ll have his own problems when the state legislature starts hearings on the epic failure of Maryland’s health care exchange website. Or, simply, it’s like O’Malley said: New Jersey residents will have to sort it out.
We start with O’Malley because the Gov. Christie’s (R-NJ) now existential political crisis raises one critical question looming large above all else: How much non-stop, show-to-show, unconstrained coverage of Christie scandals can the national viewing public stomach? With news just dropped that Christie may be facing yet another investigation – this time from feds snooping into his use of Sandy funds – expect your screens to be overtaken by mobs of copy on the embattled governor. Democrats will be eagerly weighing in because they’ll feel the need to take Christie, about the only real competition to Hillary Clinton, out of the 2016 equation; Republicans, giddy over his fairly solid press conference performance, will put a spin to protect … about the only good thing they’ve got going for 2016.
Doesn’t matter if you’re in Jersey, Texas or California, it seems you won’t find cable news outlets talking about much else – at least until the end of the week when President Obama is expected to announce plans for an NSA overhaul.
But, ultimately, how much do average public Jane and Joes really care about a bovine state executive’s troubles in the Garden State? At some point, there’s an overkill element that slowly seeps in as we watch one show host passing off the hour to the other, one reporter passing off the mic to the other about the same thing we just watched hours ago then flipped the channel in hopes there was something else gripping the news cycle.
Obviously, “Bridgegate” – and, now “Sandygate” – is significant considering our propensity for presidential election predictions. We want to know, as early as possible, who will rule the world in a few years. And, if you live in Jersey, you should want to know if senior state government aides played traffic games at your expense. Still, the problem with relentless spin-puking news focus on one big scandal is that it starts to pose more awkward questions about the state of media than the state of the politician covered. It looks ridiculous and lazy after a while: How much more do we really need to know about the same emails? Maybe get back to us when you’ve found other emails or when the governor’s fingerprint is actually on it.
The other issue is this: in the context of the 2016 race, is Christie’s fingerprint even all that important? Taking a step back, we have to ask ourselves if Christie was ever all that much of a serious contender for the White House in the first place. We think so based on a string of polls – such as a recent holiday Quinnipiac poll that showed him neck-and-neck with Hillary Clinton – but, those focus more on his general election prospects than his GOP primary prospects. He can’t get to the general without first getting through a ridiculously red-meat and presently anti-Northeasterner Republican electorate. “It’s laughable that the party that has previously seriously considered some fairly inconceivable candidates as worthy of the GOP nomination would suddenly reverse course and head over to a center-right candidate such as Christie,” writes pollster Charlie Cook in National Journal. And so how much of this turns out being a wasted exercise?
How much more do we need to know that reporters are so diligently immersed in the business of sifting through thousands of emails that the servers upon which said documents are sitting are sluggish? How many more irascible Jersey state legislators must we be subjected to as they are randomly paraded through the cable talk circuit? Is this really a national issue or is it just a Jersey issue?
Let’s be frank about this: corruption in American politics, particularly on the state and local level, are as commonplace as parking tickets. We know this. There are – on any give weekday – numerous municipal or state capital abuses of power as horrific and salacious as this one. The differentiator in this particular case is that Christie is a larger-than-life political caricature with enormous political talent. Jersey is not even all that consequential or battleground as states go, but the fact this animated Republican governor is running things in a solidly blue state captivates political junkies to no end.
But, does that qualify the story as an actual issue? Just because it’s trending, doesn’t mean it’s substantial or life-altering. And just because it’s important inside the Beltway doesn’t necessarily mean it’s important beyond the Beltway (a place where Congress won’t align its attention span).
Which raises the perpetual discussion in journalism about what constitutes an important need-to-know story. If I live in Mississippi, do I really need to know the story about a busy bridge between New York City and its suburb (oops – sorry North Jersey)? Or, should I be on the receiving end of additional information on where Congress stands on the unemployment benefits extension since a quarter of the population in my state lives in poverty? In West Virginia, 300,000 residents are without water while a major river remains contaminated – a real scandal more worthy of national interest and unremitting inquiries into government malfeasance. Yet, how convenient when the important stuff slips through the cracks of a scandal.
CHARLES D. ELLISON is a veteran political strategist and Chief Political Correspondent for UPTOWN Magazine. He is also a frequent contributor for TheRoot.com and Washington Correspondent for The Philadelphia Tribune. He can be reached via Twitter @charlesdellison.
