White House Watch: Bush's jammed PR machine
Senior Republicans are increasingly concerned that the once-vaunted White House PR machine is misfiring or not firing at all. A big problem, they say, is that senior aides to President Bush who used to deal directly with the media during his first term and the campaign don't have much time to talk to reporters anymore. This group includes Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and senior adviser Dan Bartlett. Card is focusing on nonmedia tasks, and Rove and Bartlett have taken on additional responsibilities since the November election.
White House insiders tell U.S. News that new recruits to the West Wing are gun-shy about talking to reporters because they fear making a gaffe or being accused by colleagues of leaking to the media–a cardinal offense in Bushworld. White House officials are still wedded to message control, with everyone speaking with one voice according to a script. But in the first term, a handful of senior White House and campaign officials divided up 50 influential reporters in Washington and took turns calling them–to keep the journalists up to date, give the administration's spin on events, and acquire intelligence on what the media were about to report. That level of engagement is gone, and this is making GOP insiders worry that the administration is losing valuable opportunities to spread its message.
Even Bush's solo press conferences–which he is holding at the rate of one per month–aren't doing much to impress voters. That appears to be because Bush says the same things over and over again. The result: little or no news and a sense that the president is running in place, Republican strategists say.