How to take over a politics news cycle — IN ONE LICK
LONDONDERRY, N.H. — The political silly season of 2016 campaign has begun. For America, this is both sad and highly entertaining.
Every election cycle, political news enters a holding pattern when nothing of importance happens (check: the first GOP debate is not until early August). In these times, random and otherwise not-very newsworthy events can drive the campaign conversation for a few hours — sometimes even an entire day. The result? We don’t talk about any real issues, instead focusing on the “silly” stuff.
The first silly season story happened Thursday, when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie spent the morning in New Hampshire talking about the real and serious issue of drug abuse. In recent years, the state has endured a spike in opioid overdoses, particularly from heroin or similar substances.
But here’s what drove the internet instead that day: Christie’s defense of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. Earlier, a National Football League report said that it was “more probable than not” that the football star knew the footballs were under inflated during a playoff game, seemingly for a competitive advantage. Reporters from multiple news outlets, including the New York Times, asked Christie about Brady during his New Hampshire trip.
(In fairness, the Globe also asked Christie about Tom Brady, but the Patriots are our hometown team, and we ran a longer video interview and feature on his drug policy proposal.)
Enough about football. Back to the point.
Days later, also in New Hampshire, US Senator Rand Paul was having a good campaign visit. A new poll showed him tied for the lead in the Granite State, and his campaign announced 20 state Representatives had endorsed him. These are two things that his father, former US Representative Ron Paul, was never able to boast during his bids for president here.
At a town hall meeting, Rand Paul took a serious tone on issues like government surveillance, immigration and Social Security. He warned the crowd about the perils of certain provisions of the Patriot Act set to expire at the end of this month.
But all anyone will remember from that day is that one of Paul’s staffers approached a guy paid to record events for a liberal group and licked — yes, licked — the camera before telling the camera guy to leave.
In the internet age, it’s become much easier for small silly season stories to have a bigger impact. Once something is disseminated, it can go viral. Once it is viral, then some media outlets report it has gone viral — at which point it goes through another round of viralness.
On the positive side, in an age of social media, these silly happenings can encourage voters to attend more events. They witness political history, such as Hillary Clinton crying, Mitt Romney signing, Rick Perry… what was the third thing again?
And, of course, catching an event where staffers lick cameras.
James Pindell is a political reporter for The Boston Globe
