Wondering About Disclosure for One CNN Post-Debate Analyst

Friday, November 30, 2007

MITT ROMNEY

Readers, you've probably picked up that I would watch CNN's Campbell Brown read the stock ticker aloud for an hour if a news network chose to showcase her in that manner.

But I'm afraid the Campaign Spot's favorite anchor has run afoul of another minor issue of disclosure. She's married to Dan Senor, former aide to Paul Bremer and a frequent spokesman for the Iraq Coalition Provisional Authority. Senor signed on with Mitt Romney's campaign as an unpaid communications consultant. (An erroneous report initially said he was a paid consultant.)

Now, I don't think this means Brown is in the tank for Romney. In fact, as you'll see below, she seemed pretty fair in her comments. But Ron Brownstein usually discloses in his columns that his wife is working for John McCain. CNN has gotten grief for including James Carville in their post-Democratic debate discussions, and while Carville claims he's "never worked for Hillary's campaign" that dog won't hunt; he's still an "informal adviser" and has donated to her.

I realize it's an unpaid advisory role, and maybe this feels like kicking CNN while it's down, but shouldn't the Romney connection be disclosed if she's going to be one of the folks evaluating how he performed?

It wasn't mentioned by Anderson Cooper in his introduction:

Turning now to David Gergen, adviser to presidents from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton, as well as scholar, author and CNN contributor Bill Bennett is with us. Mr. Bennett served in the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations. CNN's Campbell Brown is joining us as well. Her special report, "Broken Government: Campaign Killers," that runs tonight at 11:00 p.m. East Coast time. And also joining us, CNN's Jeffrey Toobin, and Jamal Simmons, president of New Future Communications. He worked in the Gore 2000 and Wesley Clark '04 campaigns.

Interestingly, Brown wasn't afraid to take a shot at Romney:

I have heard a couple of people say it's the new third rail of American politics. And it certainly felt that way tonight. But I don't think, in that exchange between Romney and Rudy, that there was a winner, per se. I think you would have to concede that both of those candidates were hardly...

COOPER: OK.

BROWN: ... the anti-immigration guys that they seem to be now when they held their previous positions. So, there's a sort of lack of authenticity coming from both of them when they try to make their case.

Rereading the transcript, it seems she didn't get many words in edgewise. Another comment:

CAMPBELL BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, can I ask — just Jeffrey's point, I agree with him. I think we all agree Huckabee did have a good night, but — but he was — I mean, he got a lot of lay-up questions. You asked a preacher to talk about the Bible, and he's going to hit it out of the ballpark.

He is extremely likable. I mean, that's his gift. But he does have to get beyond that, beyond the charm, and get deeper into the issues. And — and I don't think the other candidates really pressed him that hard for reasons that he is so likable. It's hard to go after him. And if you go after him too much, do you then elevate him even further at a time when he does seem to be taking off in terms of the polls?

I was tipped off to this by a reader who described Senor as "an important Romney supporter and adviser." I asked the Romney campaign to describe his role and they said, "he is not formally affiliated with our campaign and is not paid by the campaign... He does provide advice to the campaign." So it's a grayer area; if Senor was a paid consultant, this would clearly be a bigger issue.

(Glass house? Mrs. CampaignSpot remains safely anonymous, but rest assured she doesn't work for any campaign. And near as I can tell, none of my family members are employed by any candidate. Although I admit that when I heard that a woman in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, had asked John McCain at one of his fundraisers, "how do we beat the b****?", my initial reaction was, "Yeah, that might be Mom.")

11/30 10:57 AM Share