February 28, 2010 09:49 PM UTC

Romanoff Does Fox News, Well and Truly

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• by: Colorado Pols

Friday morning, Democratic Senate primary candidate Andrew Romanoff made a feature appearance on the Fox News Channel. It’s definitely worth watching, though you’ll notice right away the standard Fox News divergence from reality–starting with the failure to mention during the lead-in that GOP candidate Jane Norton has a primary of her own.

As for Romanoff, this appearance on Fox News is not getting the same level of promotion as other earned media for his campaign, which is kind of odd considering the Fox News Channel has substantially higher viewership than, for example, a user diary on the Denver Huffington Post or an online poll to “freep” at the Denver Business Journal. You would have thought this appearance would have shown up shortly afterward in a campaign blast email, right?

Watching his appearance, though we can see pretty clearly why this isn’t getting as much play, and it’s more than the hated Fox News bug in the lower left of the screen. On several key questions, Romanoff failed to take a specific stand and responded with confusing ambiguity. On others, he actually took positions to the right of his Democratic opponent Sen. Michael Bennet.

Romanoff declined to endorse the present effort to pass health care reform legislation via the process known as “reconciliation,” allowing a Republican filibuster to be bypassed. Romanoff said only that reconciliation was appropriate for “budget matters,” which could be reasonably interpreted as opposing using it for health care. We would be interested in hearing an alternative explanation for what that statement would seem to, you know, plainly suggest, but unfortunately most of Fox News’ viewers won’t get the chance to hear it even if it exists.

More bizarre was Romanoff’s answer to the question of whether he would support the current health reform bill at all. Romanoff apparently does not, he wants the bill to be “improved” by “reducing costs.” Now correct us if we’re wrong, but that’s a talking point that, left unelaborated, is right at home on the Fox News Channel–not to mention fundamentally at odds with what most Romanoff supporters think they’re supporting. Now maybe it isn’t, but Romanoff’s opportunity to explain himself went unused except for some vague comments about “how hard things are.” However Romanoff might feel, what he actually said on national television was vague enough that John Boehner could have been the one saying it.

But the biggest gap between “progressive crusader” Senate candidate Romanoff and the guy they kept calling Andrew Romanoff in this Fox News interview begins on Romanoff’s own campaign website, under the “issues” section.

He believes our nation’s health care plan should [g]uarantee coverage for all Americans through a single-payer model.

Now, because a “single-payer” health care system this would likely cost a lot of money, and we just got through ambiguously disparaging the current reform bill out of a need to “reduce costs,” the Fox anchor was understandably a little confused. It went like this:

FNC: I read on your website last night that you’re in favor, ultimately, of a single-payer healthcare system…

ROMANOFF: That’s not entirely accurate. [Pols emphasis] What I support is a universal system of coverage in which every American could get access to insurance, and there are a couple of ways to do that, but in which the private sector continues to provide health care.

We suppose the one tiny escape vector here is his mention of “a couple of ways” to achieve a universal system of coverage, one of which presumably being the “single-payer” model. The thing is, that one plank in Romanoff’s platform, however implausible in the context of today’s debate, is what rallied a small but highly vocal contingent of single-payer health reform activists to Romanoff’s flag. And at the very least, he just seriously equivocated on them.

In the end, this was by far the highest-profile appearance for Andrew Romanoff he’s had, well, ever. Romanoff could have held forth on the range of issues he sells himself as more “progressive” on than his primary opponent–for the purposes of getting ready for next month’s Democratic caucuses, he shouldn’t have been worried about offending Fox News’ conservative viewers; this was his chance to win over Democrats watching after the fact. The venue was incidental, or might have even been helpful had he been less evasive and noncommittal.

Instead, he gave a performance that won’t win over a single general election Republican watching live, while placing himself either ambiguously or full-on to the right of his opponent on key issues going into a Democratic primary. If any of you would like to take a shot explaining at how that helps Romanoff’s already marginal prospects in any way, now’s your chance.