Is Obama Warming Up To Fox News?
This story was written by Michael Calderone.
On Wednesday morning, Sen. Barack Obama appeared on "Fox & Friends," giving his first lengthy interview to the Rupert Murdoch-owned network since declaring his presidential candidacy.
Perhaps even more surprising, Obama indicated earlier this week that he might one day appear on "The O'Reilly Factor."
On Monday, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly aired his much-talked-about "scuffle" with an Obama campaign staffer during a New Hampshire event. When O'Reilly got Obama's attention, he asked, "Can we have a word sometime?" The Illinois Democrat replied, "How about after the primary?"
While it's not clear from the Fox News transcript whether Obama meant after the entire primary cycle or just New Hampshire, either way, it looks like a strategic change.
Not to mention, his chief Democratic rival has already done so.
In 2007, Hillary Rodham Clinton sat down for interviews on both Fox News and the Fox Business Network. And on Wednesday, the senator from New York appeared on "Fox & Friends" too - just 15 minutes after Obama did.
So far this election cycle, the only other time Obama has answered questions on Fox News was on Nov. 7, when correspondent Major Garrett briefly caught up to him at an Iowa campaign stop.
Of course, the Democrats have long refused to participate in Fox-sponsored debates. When Obama followed John Edwards' lead last April, opting out of a proposed Fox News debate, his spokesman Bill Burton said, "CNN seemed like a more appropriate host."
Burton did not respond to an e-mail request Thursday asking whether the Obama campaign is indeed changing its strategy toward Fox News.
That Obama chose not to participate in the proposed debate on Fox News should not have been unexpected. In early 2007, his Senate staff criticized the network for propping up a now-debunked Insight magazine story that Obama was educated in a madrassa. CNN later proved the story false by dispatching a correspondent to Indonesia to investigate the rumor.
"Fox News quickly parroted the charges," read the Obama staff memo at the time, "and 'Fox & Friends' host Steve Doocy went so far as to ask, 'Why didn't anybody ever mention that that man right there was raised - spent the first decade of his life, raised by his Muslim father - as a Muslim and was educated in a madrassa?'"
So Obama not only didn't appear on "Fox & Friends" this election cycle, but he also turned down requests to go on the Chris Wallace-hosted "Fox News Sunday." Clinton, on the other hand, appeared on Wallace's program in September.
Last month, Wallace told Politico that he guessed the Democratic candidates would show up more on Fox News once there is a nominee, "because they know that we get a lot of voters they are going to need if they are going to win the election."
There's no nominee yet, but with a thinning Democratic field, Obama appears to already be following that advice.
