The other day Politico ran a big story about how the Rick Perry campaign isn’t doing a very good job. Which may or may not be true, but Perry did manage to make some lemonade out of it when talking to Mike Allen:
“You got a name? You got a name? You got a name?” Mike Allen has a name, yes, but he wasn’t willing or able to give the name of whoever he was talking about.
I don’t know if Perry will be the GOP nominee, but I hope all the candidates pay attention to what he did here. This is how you deal with a hostile media: Reject the premise. Remind the audience what’s really going on. When somebody like Mike Allen holds up a hoop, tell him to jump through it himself. It’s not your job. Make him do his. And if he can’t or won’t, make sure everybody knows it.