A lesson in how not to keep a negative story out of the media
By Brian Schoeneman | Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 | Politics
You’re 23. You go to a party. You drink a little. Some not so flattering pictures are taken of you horsing around with your friends. Five years later you decide to run for Congress. Those pictures end up on the internet, on a regional blog written by supporters of your opponent, which gets picked up by a larger blog that everyone reads. What’s the best way to ensure that the story stays small? Simple – you ignore it. Let your surrogates explain the pictures or, at most, make a joke about them in a speech.
What’s the best way to ensure that the story has legs? Well, first, do an interview with a local TV station. Then go on the Today Show.
That’s exactly what Krystal Ball, the Democratic candidate running against Congressman Rob Wittman in Virginia 1, is doing. And I’m willing to bet she’s doing it on purpose. Why? Because there’s no other reason why she’d give those interviews – they’re 100% contrary to what every good crisis management plan advises. No matter what she says in the interviews, she’s giving the TV stations and the blogs more fodder and more excuses to run the pictures.
If you haven’t seen the pictures, BVBL has them here.
Ball is, apparently, “angry” about the pictures coming out. They’re “outrageous” and “sexist.” Really? Nobody seemed to think it was outrageous and sexist when Scott Brown’s Cosmo spread was splayed across the papers in Massachusetts.
But that didn’t stop her from making a perfect pivot from these pictures into a pitch for her new radio ads and her calls for Wittman to debate her. She’s pulling a textbook Briar Patch move – good enough that I wouldn’t be that surprised if she had leaked them herself. Given how fast and loose she’s played with the law when it comes to her business dealings, as Virginia Virtucon exposed months ago, I wouldn’t put anything past her.
Some of the commenters over on Not Larry Sabato are apoplectic about Ben’s willingness to put this story up. I think they should be thanking him – her campaign was on its last legs and the only question anyone had about the outcome in that race was how high into the double digits Wittman’s lead would go. Now she’s got national media attention. It could only be a matter of time, as one commenter on NLS said, before she’s up on TV telling everyone “I’m not a Christmas Dominatrix….I’m you.“
Tags:
Contribute for Conservatism!
Share this post
About the author
A veteran political professional, a long-time Republican party activist and new attorney, Brian W. Schoeneman has been offering his opinions at Bearing Drift since 2010. He serves on the Board of Virginia Line Media, LLC, which operates Bearing Drift and spends his days representing the U.S. Merchant Marine in Washington, D.C. He hails from Fairfax County, Virginia, where he lives with his wife and son.
We're 75% there! Thank you to everyone who has so far contributed! Just $2000 to go!
Comments
22 Responses to "A lesson in how not to keep a negative story out of the media"
My goodness…
Wow! I wonder if she will be available for bachelor parties after the election?
This story shows the worst in all of us.
It’s wrong to have the party in the first place.
It’s wrong to take photos.
It’s wrong to release those photos.
It’s wrong to decide to post those photos.
It’s wrong to perpetuate the story.
I could go on, but you get the point.
This story really disappoints me, and reflects badly not only on the candidate, but also on those who give the story life. It reflects badly on politics in general and makes you wonder why anyone would ever want to get involved.
It also, as you mentioned, was totally unnecessary. Not that such a story ever would be, but you can at least understand the temptation of some to tell such a thing in a close race.
J.R., I agree. I don’t think these pictures should matter in the overall scheme of things. Young people do dumb stuff. So what’s the big deal?
I saw the story break yesterday and I wasn’t planning on writing anything up about it, until I saw that she was on NBC 12 talking about the issue and that she was booked to go on the Today Show to talk about it.
While I agree it’s wrong that this story is even out there, I think it’s equally wrong for her to try and use it to bootstrap her way into some national media coverage.
Shame on whoever broke the story first, but shame on her for trying to get her 15 minutes of fame from it.
Agreed. I actually asked her campaign to comment, but they didn’t. I presumed they were in crisis comms mode too.
However, when I saw the NBC12 piece, I planned on writing a post much like yours. Thanks for beating me to the punch. I couldn’t have said it any better!
I piled on this one, but on a serious note, if this is desperation move by Ball to garner a “sympathy vote” by feigning a “sexist” and “outrageous” charge against “Republicans”, then her campaign should be swept into the dust bin of 1st District political history. I met Ball in the context of her K-12 business several years ago and was impressed with her business sense and her ability to articulate the goals and benefits of home schooling. But I also have met Rob Wittman on more than one occasion and am more impressed with his ability to cut to the chase and articulate problems and solutions. He has an uncanny ability to drill down into the minutia of how difficult it is to deal with the current Democratic leadership and an eidetic memory of specifics of all the bills he has voted on, which he does read.
JR, if there is anything in your “worst of” in that story that points back to Ball, or in some way proves to be an “October surprise” by Republicans, then whoever is responsible has to be thoroughly scolded to the point of making them take a step back and look at their actions which will persist on internet blogs and search engines forever. This may a negative affect the reputation of the party responsible and the candidate which will carry on long after this election is over.
The only person standing to gain from this is Krystal Ball herself. She gets to play the poor victim.
Any young politician joining the Pelosi-Reid party deserves NO sympathy.
How’s this for a question?
If the guy in the photos was the candidate, would anyone care?
Only if he was a Republican, Brian.
Given that these photos were leaked anonymously…
Given that she’s decided to discuss them instead of properly avoid them…
Given that this is getting her campaign more attention then it had gotten up to this point or could ever get otherwise…
Given how her campaign has already played the “sexism” card and sees that as a winning strategy…
Given the amateur nature of her campaign…
…is it too far fetched to wonder if they leaked the photos?
I agree with Jason, its like some crazy Law and Order where the guilty party shot themselves to put someone else in prison.
Now here’s a point I think though if you live your life like everyone can see everything you do then why worry. Obviously she wasn’t the only one at that party. So what she was acting all sexy and such. If you are completely upfront with you who you are then these kinds of things are meaningless. It’s when you hide aspects of your life that you have problems.
They weren’t that horrible if you ask me but I’m still wondering what were they doing with the squeegee in that one pic?
[...] Ball, Democrat Running In VA-1, And Those PhotosPosted on | October 6, 2010 | View Commentsby SmittyBearing DriftYou’re 23. You go to a party. You drink a little. Some not so flattering pictures are taken of you [...]
Lee, that wasn’t a squeegee… it was a “ball retriever”…
Well from the rest of the photos I could see the ex was definitely lacking.
I enjoyed the pictures. Beats the hell out of the war on masturbation, registering homosexuals, impending sharia law, etc. She’s got spunk. I’m definately voting for her.
I don’t think they leaked the pictures themselves.
I do agree with Brian that what they are doing is really poor crisis management. But, not everybody is good at that, as campaigns throughout the years have shown. I wouldn’t imput evil motive here where incompetence explains what they’d done.
I don’t think the Wittman campaign put them out either. I’d wager it was an overzealous Wittman supporter.
This was, as JR mentioned, totally unnecessary. She didn’t have a prayer of winning before these photos came out.
Just further lowers the bar on politics. And yes, both sides are to blame for that.
Is there anyone who didn’t do something in college they wouldn’t want to see on the Internet?
@GeneK. She is not running for US Senate in Delaware. She is for Congress running VA-1. I have no reason whatsoever to vote for when I have one of the best, most knowledgable, hardest working Congressman in Rob Wittman. Why I would want to replace him with this very questionable neophyte? So far her campaign has been all about cute stunts. I haven’t seen the photos and don’t even care to. I’ve seen quite enough of her antics already.
Krystal to the main stage…Krystal…
She’ll be working in Portsmouth at Lappers by the end of November. She will be…very popular.
I only caught part of this newscast on the radio. Something about it was determined who had leaked the photos. Not sure I got that right though. The rest the fact that women are treated differently than men and well, we’ve heard the victimology part of her schtick.
this article is a new low for bd.. I regret reading this filth on this blog. Time for a come to jesus meeting..
News is filth? You must have a pretty low standard for filth there, Turbo. I wouldn’t turn a TV on any time soon – might give you a stroke.
Ya, Turbo. Go ahead and call your come to Jesus meeting and see who shows up…Loser…Since when are you calling meetings. If you don’t like BD go ahead and start your own darn blog. You and Kenny can send love messages back and forth to each other as you pass Max back and forth…
Leave your response