During an interview with 2020 Democratic presidential candidate John Delaney on her Monday show, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell wondered how the former Maryland Congressman could possibly compete with Beto O’Rourke, whom she promised the media would follow “like a magnet” throughout the campaign.
The host began her question by quoting left-wing New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd hailing O’Rourke in her latest article – something Mitchell referred to as “the Maureen Dowd primary”:
We have The One again, a New One, another lanky, bookish, handsome man with an attractive young family, a thin resume, an exotic name, a hip affect, a rock star aura, an enticing smile, a liberal press corps ready to fluff his pillows and a frothing Fox News.
Picking up on how even Dowd saw “a liberal press corps ready to fluff his pillows,” Mitchell pressed Delaney: “What do you do about the sort of celebrity factor and the way the media seems to, you know, follow like a magnet?”
In her Times column, amid comparing O’Rourke to Barack Obama and Jesus, Dowd observed:
Just as reporters once swooned when Obama made like Jay-Z and brushed imaginary dirt off his shoulder after a tough primary debate in Philly in 2008, reporters were entranced when O’Rourke air-drummed “Baba O’Riley” by the Who at a Whataburger drive-through after his debate with Cruz.
Mitchell similarly acknowledged that reality, but neither her nor Dowd seemed troubled by the blatant media bias, in fact, it sounded more like they were touting the press adulation for O’Rourke.
