Fox News Channel’s chief political correspondent Carl Cameron didn’t mince words recently when he addressed a group of young conservatives in Virginia.
The long and the short of it is this – American politics is dysfunctional, from elections to policy debates.
That message, given to a crowd of college students and professionals gathered at a speech Friday hosted by Young America’s Foundation, aimed at teaching the audience that the “game” of politics is somewhat polluted.
And that’s unfortunate, Cameron said.
“Binary politics needs to remember that the game here is being an American, and being able to fight tooth and nail in the last couple of weeks of an election. But not a year. These midterm attack ads started in last October. That’s not love of the game. That is beating it into the ground,” he said to the roughly 50 people in the room.
What’s been lost in the battle is the connection among Americans, he said.
“It’s not a question of free speech,” he said. “It’s not a question of campaign finance reform. I’m not talking about money or anything else. I’m talking about love the game and honor the players and honor the sport and not kick the sh*t out of it for a 24 hour news cycle for a 24 hour win at the expense of ‘process equals policy.’”
That might be surprising coming from a television journalist on a 24-hour national news station, but Cameron explained the problem with the sound-bite arena is that it’s average Americans who ultimately lose, because important and vital policy discussions do not get the attention they deserve.
“Policy never gets discussed anymore,” Cameron said. “It used to be that good policy was good politics, but now we look at good politics as what scores a 24-hour news cycle.”
Debate topics have become much more “character and personality-oriented,” and candidates would be “politically idiotic” if they discussed their positions in-depth, such as their plan for jobs and the economy, he said.
“As soon as you take an economic position today, and the market fluctuates this afternoon, and we get an economic report this Friday or next Friday, the ground shifts beneath that economic policy, and you are now a piñata,” Cameron said. “So we don’t talk about policy because it is politically unsmart.”
Cameron, who has worked at Fox News since 1996, said he’s seen all too often how promising young lawmakers are negatively influenced by the system.
“This city inside the 495 Beltway is filled with people who have been around long enough to know to get stuff done. It’s how they got here,” he said. “Out on the campaign trail when I talk to freshman incomers – people who may or may not win – I always say to them, and to the staffers too, ‘When you get there, test yourself and don’t go native before you get off the plane.’”
That advice is rarely heeded.
“Most of the newly elected, they have shiny new staffers provided for them by the consultant who wasn’t from their state but was hired in Washington,” he said. “The staffer and the consultant bring on people who have all kinds of great ideas about who will do the polls about your first term. They will be creative people who will talk about what messaging and what positions you should have in the caucus and the conference, and what committee posts to go after. And none of this has anything to do with voters. It is real easy to get corrupted by it all.”
Ironically, despite this focus-group mentality, voter turnout at the 2014 midterm was the lowest in 72 years. The longtime journalist discussed how “silly” partisanship has become in the United States, and said that might have something to do with it. And it shouldn’t have to be like that, he added.
Cameron contrasted the political arena to the postseason of Major League Baseball. A Red Sox fan, Cameron described himself as a “Boston sports partisan.”
“In October, if you are from New York, I don’t like you,” Cameron joked.
But, he said, “There is a mutual respect for our mutual hatred. As a consequence of that, we are able to set aside outside of October our differences and love the game.”
Cameron said one solution might be for Americans to remember they are all on the same team.
“We have to remember to love the game,” he said. “It is okay to be a Red Sox fan if you remember the game is something we all share and participate in and enjoy.”
“That’s not happening in American politics. And those who practice it, and those who come here to cover it, or to shape it, or to be engaged in it, it’s okay to try to win. But don’t do it at the expense of the process that got us this far.”
College Fix reporter Michael Cipriano is a student at American University.
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IMAGE: Main, Vaibhav Bhosale, Flickr; Inside, Fox News image
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