TAMPA, Fla. — The left’s disdain for former Alabama Democratic Rep. Artur Davis’ embrace of the Republican Party has been obvious, particularly when the Congressional Black Caucus condemned his endorsement of Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
But it has also been evident in the media coverage of it as well, with his speech having been all but ignored by MSNBC on Tuesday night. Davis, once a regular guest on MSNBC in primetime, acknowledged the leftward tilt of the network in an interview.
“MSNBC has made a conscious marketing decision, with the exception of [Joe] Scarborough’s show that they are going to be an organ of the Democratic Party and it appears in the way we interpret the rules these days in terms of broadcasting — they clearly have an agenda in their coverage with the way they put things on the air,” Davis told The Daily Caller.
As for the network neglecting to air his speech at the Republican National Convention, he said it was gesture by the network indicating his speech went well.
“That’s par for the course, and I remember going into it and someone said to me that the test for if your speech is successful will be if MSNBC shows any of it,” he said. “If it’s a bomb, they’ll cut to it so people can see that it’s a bomb. If it’s successful, they won’t cover a second of it. So the fact that they didn’t cover any of it I actually think is a positive thing.”
But as for these attacks, the former Alabama congressman explained being under fire from the left isn’t anything for him.
“It’s not new to me to be under attack from the liberal media and liberal commentators,” Davis said. “That’s been a recurrent theme for my time in politics.”
Immediately following Davis’ appearance on CNN, Roland Martin, one of the network’s contributors who appeared in that segment, criticized Davis on his Twitter account since Davis had declined invitations to appear on his TVOne Sunday public affairs program “Washington Watch,” that has an emphasis on the black community.
I offered to debate
@arturdavis for the entire hour of@tvonetv#WashingtonWatch and he REFUSED to commit. That’s a punk move. He’s scared— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) August 29, 2012
Davis explained his reasoning behind turning Martin down, which had more to do with risk not being worth the reward of swaying voters in Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s direction.
“I have zero interest in going on Roland Martin’s show because there aren’t too many people who are potential voters who watch Roland Martin’s show for a Mitt Romney candidate,” Davis said. “I know that Roland Martin and some others may think I have some obligations to defend myself to a particular community. That’s their way of looking at the world and not mine. I don’t go on programs out of the theory that I’m there to defend myself to a particular community or justify myself. I’m not a candidate for office. I’m not involved in a debate about whether I should be elected to anything. So I have no obligation to go before any community to quote, unquote ‘defend myself.'”
“There are very few people who watch Roland Martin, watch his program on TVOne who are potential voters for Mitt Romney, so why would I waste my time thinking I could sway them?” he added.
