Christine O’Donnell and the ethics of silence
Are politicians obligated to talk to the media?
Christine O’Donnell, Tea Party favorite and winner of the Delaware Senate primary, used her Fox News platform to announce that she will no longer give national interviews. This seems to leave open the possibility that she would give interviews to local Delaware media, but that might be expecting too much. Someone with more media experience can correct me, but I’d guess that an interview given to the local ABC affiliate is up for grabs to be picked up or at least quoted by the national news office. Is O’Donnell’s choice ethically problematic?
On one hand, in a functional democracy one would hope that politicians would do all they could to make their views known and to explain why the views they hold are superior to those of their opponents. In this sense, O’Donnell is acting poorly as a candidate.
But by refusing to speak she communicates volumes. She’s running as the Tea Party candidate, whatever that means to people. Much like the Tea Party itself doesn’t seem to need concrete policy positions to succeed, neither does O’Donnell.
Ultimately, participants in a democracy get the candidates they deserve. If the national mood calls for a candidate without positions, why would the candidate wish to provide them?
The real issue is that Sarah Palin proved that for a certain type of candidate, speaking to the media (or really at all) is disasterous. Whether O’Donnell wins or not, she likely has a book deal and radio program waiting for her on the other side — if she can just keep her actual positions to herself.
-John
Image used under a Creative Commons license; image credit to michaeldjohns.
Related posts:
- Oh, politicians and they things they say
- Primaries as partisan purifiers
- Wrangling over ethics
- The ethics of the House ethics committee
- Parties versus principles
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