Hillary's media avoidance strategy

Washington Times:

When Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton wants to get a message out, her presidential campaign handpicks news outlets. Or, in some cases, bypasses the media entirely.

The New York Democrat's third-quarter fundraising blowout was leaked to the Drudge Report. She made sure an Iowa newspaper printed her comments that she found Sen. Barack Obama's answer to a foreign-policy question "irresponsible" and "naive." She also uses her "Hillary Hub" campaign creation to break news.

The strategy allows Mrs. Clinton — who rarely holds press availabilities — to avoid taking questions from reporters who cover her campaign and who might have detailed follow-up queries to her carefully planned policy announcements.

Mrs. Clinton's rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination have been painting her as someone who dodges tough questions or parses answers to difficult issues. Her opponents stepped up the pressure after it was revealed her campaign staff planted two questions with supporters at a campaign event.

Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina regularly accuses Mrs. Clinton of "double-talk," and his campaign created a "Plants for Hillary" spoof Web site to highlight the issue.

"Not answering questions because we're afraid our answers won't be popular just won't do," Mr. Obama of Illinois recently added to his stump speech.

...

As her answer to the question on drivers licenses for illegal aliens demonstrated, she is not good in unscripted situations. For a lawyer she is not very quick on her feet when it comes to things that are not already on her legal pad.

In politics her main problem is that her only real core belief is in insuring her electibility. When you have no core belief you are constantly polling for what people want you to believe and trying to remember those poll results for a particularly audience. It is much easier if you have core beliefs that you can repeat to any audience whether they want to hear them or not.

This Wall Street Journal article gives some of the specifics of how she tries to navigate between the Democrats' kook base and the rest of the country. You will note that she does not, not take a position because she does not agree with it, but because it will make it more difficult to avoid Republican arguments against her candidacy.