There's good stuff and bad stuff for Mitt Romney's campaign in Michael Calderone's new read on its relationship with the media.
The bad stuff.
While Romney has taken the stage for primetime debates and has done a few cable news hits, he's avoided lengthy interviews with magazines to which he spoke in 2008 -- such as Time and Newsweek -- and hasn't appeared on any of the Sunday morning chat shows, a traditional pit stop for any presidential contender.
In other words, the race has probably been too easy for him, and if he wins, he'll enter the general election without the kink-reducing benefit of having endured a vigorous primary.
There are two qualifications to this.
1. Romney isn't quite as bad off on that as he could be, since he so thoroughly went through the refiner's fire in the 2008 primary.
2. At least he's done debates. I often think of Meg Whitman's gubernatorial campaign when I think of Romney's, and while their inaccessibility and front-running strategy is similar, their approach to debates is decidedly different. Romney has been consistently up for debates.
Whitman, on the other hand, seemed readier to shop at a Goodwill in Bakersfield than debate (read here).
Now the good stuff for Romney.
.... while keeping on top of everything written about the candidate, the Romney campaign doesn't overreact to pieces that may depict him in a less-than-flattering light. Multiple reporters even described the Romney press shop as having a "zen" approach to the media.
In keeping with Romney's slow-and-steady 2012 strategy, regardless of who may be the Republican flavor of the moment, his press team seems to take the long view. They aren't wasting time fighting every single blog post.
This is a crucial point -- Romney's team seems to understand that the press is there to raise uncomfortable questions, and consequently, the campaign doesn't freak out if reporters ask something beyond "Do you favor better schools, a stronger national defense, and peace on earth?"
