Viral Video: How Did This Happen?

Well, this happened. Third District Kansas Republican Party Chair Vicki Sciolaro went on television, and it really didn't go well. In the video, Sciolaro is asked about Presidential candidate Donald Trump's potty mouth, and Sciolaro tried to talk about actual issues rather than the revolting comments recorded on a hot mic almost a dozen years ago. Unfortunately, she veered a little too far off track, and no one is going to remember the very real issues she brought up.

I would be very curious to learn how this interview came about. It's pretty obvious that CNN went a bit out of its way to make conservatives look a little wacky. The Democrat guest is Shaun Harper, a professor, lecturer, and speaker from the University of Pennsylvania who researches race and equity in education. So, a polished social justice warrior who has tons of television and public speaking experience versus a kind-hearted woman from Kansas. 

At one point as Sciolaro is speaking, Brooke Baldwin, the interviewer, actually puts her head in her hands. This television appearance gave the Democrats some ammunition. 

I give Sciolaro some credit for agreeing to appear and offer her opinion. I'm not going to pile on. It's bad enough that the executive director of the Kansas Republican Party had to make a statement clarifying the Sciolaro was speaking for herself and not for Republicans. (I do not understand WHY it was necessary to make this statement, but OK. Obviously, she was speaking for herself and not the Republican party. Releasing an extra statement about it only serves to keep the viral video in the spotlight for one more cycle. To be fair, not saying anything, though, allows whatever nonsense the Dems spew to stand alone. Ugh.)

We elected Sciolaro to chair the third district. Republicans gave her that platform from which to speak. Too many Republicans shy away from speaking to the television cameras or to reporters, and many of them do so for good reasons. We get tougher questions; we're asked to excuse the bad behavior of every Republican, while the Dems rarely if ever have to defend the worst of their kind. I can't ever remember anyone asking a single Democrat operative to defend Ted Kennedy for his actions the night Mary Jo Kopechne died. And if there are reporters out there asking Democrats whether Hilary is fit to be president based on her supposed misunderstanding of 'C' meaning 'classified' on state department documents, I haven't seen those interviews.

Conservatives shy away from reporters for good reason, which means we have to be extraordinarily careful when someone waves a TV camera in our faces. Truthfully, I think this is something we need to practice--like instead of listening to speeches during the Kansas GOP Convention, we need some sessions on messaging. We're not very good at it, and that needs to change. Conservatives are about to be in the wilderness, in part, because of it.