Irrelevant Campaign Feuding With Irrelevant Network
Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign is currently in a scuffle with CNN. Or maybe it’s the other way around? Who started it? Will it matter? It won’t.
Yesterday, CNN ran a story titled “Some Marco Rubio advisors say get out before Florida.” It read:
A battle is being waged within Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s campaign about whether he should even remain in the Republican presidential race ahead of his home state primary on March 15, sources say.
Rubio himself is “bullish” on his odds of winning the critical primary, despite some advisers who are less hopeful and believe a loss there would damage him politically in both the short- and long-term.
Publicly, the campaign is maintaining they are still a contender in this race, touting a Sunday win in Puerto Rico’s primary that delivered Rubio 23 delegates. But privately, the campaign is having a debate about whether he should remain in the mix — even for his home state of Florida’s primary.
“He doesn’t want to get killed in his home state,” one source familiar with the discussions said, noting “a poor showing would be a risk and hurt his political future.
You may be surprised to learn that the Marco Rubio campaign was less than enthused by this article. Conveniently enough, Alex Conant, Rubio’s communications director, appeared on Wolf Blitzer’s CNN program shortly after the publication of the article to express this exact sentiment. He said:
Wolf, Jamie’s report was utter nonsense. She did not contact the campaign prior to coming on the show last hour and reporting that. It is 100 percent absolutely at fault. I think CNN is doing a disservice to voters by airing that sort of reporting without even checking with the campaign. Her sources, whatever they are, have no idea what the internal deliberations of the campaign are.
It was actual good TV! As a reward, CNN subsequently cancelled a previously scheduled appearance by Conant on Anderson Cooper’s show:
So @CNN just canceled my previously scheduled interview on @andersoncooper tonight
— Alex Conant (@AlexConant) March 8, 2016
Was this retaliation for flaying CNN’s thinly sourced bombshell scoop on the network’s own air? Maybe? Probably?
In any event, Alex Conant will have plenty of opportunities to make up that lost air time when he becomes a full-time talking head in, oh, about a month.
