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Mike McGavick: The Next Gary Hart?

Nearly two decades ago, the presidential campaign of Democratic Sen. Gary Hart self-destructed when the Coloradoan invited reporters to investigate rumors that he was a womanizer. The Miami Herald took him up on the offer and proved Hart wrong when he said "they'd be very bored."

A couple of weeks ago, Washington Senate candidate Mike McGavick, a Republican, encouraged similar press scrutiny with a confession by blog about an arrest for driving while intoxicated. While he scored points in the blogosphere then for his transparency, he is catching some heat from the mainstream media now for not being completely forthright in his account of the arrest.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer obtained a police report of the incident that the newspaper said shows McGavick "was less candid than he seemed last week when he disclosed a previously unknown arrest for drunk driving."

McGavick said he "cut a yellow light too close," for instance, but the police officer on the scene said he drove "through a steady red light." McGavick also appears to have been more intoxicated than he acknowledged in the blog entry.

After McGavick posted his entry, the GOP-friendly blog Real Clear Politics noted that the tell-all strategy could be effective -- but also warned that it could backfire if the candidate did not actually tell all. That seems to be exactly what happened, and the new information may be impacting McGavick's electoral chances.

"If you are going to confess past foibles in the context of a political campaign, you need to put everything on the table -- not offer it up in bits and pieces," Chris Cillizza wrote at The Fix. "McGavick still has a chance to unseat Maria Cantwell (D), but it has diminished over the past week."

McGavick's handling of the fallout from the latest information about his arrest will show exactly how astute he is when it comes to the blogosphere. Gary Hart had it easy when he foolishly turned the press against him; McGavick may be about to learn the hard way how even more unrelenting bloggers can be when they swarm.

UPDATE: This story continues to generate commentary in the blogosphere. Here is a sampling:

-- David Postman, the political reporter at the Post-Intelligencer, noted McGavick's response to the coverage of the police report.

-- Sound Politics, a current events blog in Washington state, defended McGavick against attacks from liberal bloggers. "McGavick self-confessed to an embarrassing incident in his past, and has now been forthright about discrepancies between his memory and the official record of the event," Eric Earling wrote. "Get over it already."

-- RedState said now is the time to offer support to McGavick, who recently was endorsed by The Club For Growth.

Posted by Danny | 12:15 PM

Comments

He's still likeable

buzz | 09.05.06 06:15 PM

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