I was listening to NPR last week and they did an interview with Kerry and Edwards. At the end of the interview, NPR said that had asked the Bush-Cheney campaign if they could interview President Bush and they had not gotten a response back.
That got me thinking about when was the last time Dubya was interviewed? From what I can tell, he was interviewed on June 7th by Tom Brokaw to commemorate D-Day, then on June 24th by a reporter for Radio and Television Ireland before a summit with European leaders. Since then, the UNITY conference is the closest he has come to an interview by a reporter.
Many posters have talked about the screening the Bush Campaign is doing on participants for their rallies (including "loyalty oaths"), but they have missed the why - these are the only people who are getting to ask Dubya questions. His campaign has been running a series of "Ask President Bush" events, but because the people who are asking questions are only known Republican supporters, the questions are usually weak (and on the tougher questions, there is no follow up). My guess is that the Bush campaign is justifying their refusal to take questions from the press by "taking questions directly from the American people".
This benefits Dubya in that he doesn't have to answer any tough questions. However, I think in the long run it is killing his press coverage. With Dubya, local reporters can only be passive stenographers, reporting what Dubya said in his latest rally. Because Kerry and Edwards are letting reporters actually interview them, they are transforming the reporters into news makers. When I read this from the LA Times story Kos discussed on the main page:
The Scranton newspaper covered Kerry's appearance with six stories, focusing more on local adulation than 100 people who had to be pulled from the crowd for heat exhaustion.
Later, a reporter from a CBS affiliate in Pennsylvania used his eight minute interview with Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, to talk mostly about her days growing up in Pittsburgh.
He closed by asking the candidate to come back "when" he is elected vice president. Edwards agreed.
I see reporters writing many positive stories about Kerry and Edwards because they are doing what they want to do.
Another huge benefit of Kerry's open media access compared to Dubya's is that all of the tough questions are getting asked of Kerry and Edwards now, so there will be no surprises for them as they get closer to November. If Dubya actually ever started giving interviews, he will be asked about lots of things that he has dodged because he hasn't interviewed. For example, Dubya has been putting a positive spin on the latest job numbers ("11 consecutive months of job growth"), but a reporter with any knowledge of economics can tear that spin apart ("Around 140 thousand new job seekers join the economy every month, which is more than the number of new jobs the economy has averaged over the last year. How can you claim that your economic policies are successful when at its best, the economy hasn't even kept up with new job seekers, let alone found jobs for the millions that lost their jobs during the first 2 and half years of your administration?"). The longer Dubya dodges interviews, the more painful it will be when he actually starts having them.
If I was the Kerry-Edwards campaign, I would start call out Dubya for hiding from the press. Make the pressure unbearable and make it clear that one interview is not enough. Something like, "If the President really believes in his policies as I do mine, then he should be discussing them with reporters every week like I do. If he is really as proud of his record as I am of mine, then he should be answering questions about it every week like I do. Because he is not doing interviews, I can only conclude that his positive statements about his policies and record are only wishful thinking."