The book on the press.

• Author: Carville, James
• Position: Political consultants discuss press and politics

Mary: Someone in the media has an original thought. One. Then the entire national press corps is done for the day, or week, or sometimes longer. Once the press line has been established, you can work for hours, days, even an entire campaign and not budge it. This is pretty infuriating when they're not seeing things your way. Which is pretty much all the time. The only thing to do is get out there when the story line is being created and demand they hear your side.

My reporter friends insist that they don't advocate or condemn a candidacy. What they say they do is follow the polls. If a candidate is on a downward slide, they pile on. If a candidacy is in an ascending trajectory, they pump it up. At least in the beginning, I suppose that's true; they generally don't pick a candidate and go out and support him. In the end, they like the fight.

Campaign operatives learn quickly there are rules for dealing with the press, and there are rules for them dealing with you. I got taught by one of the American originals, the syndicated columnist Jules Witcover, who has covered every presidential campaign since the fifties.

Witcover is especially fastidious about "the rules." When I first got into national politics and was learning the ropes, he told me, "Look, let me explain something to you. If you don't want your name attached to a story, you say 'I'm on background.' If you only want your thoughts used, and not your words or your name, say you're on 'deep background.' If you don't want me to use anything, you go 'off the record.' In all other cases, you're on the record, I'm going to print what you say. That's just how it works."

It sounded easy. But when you're first talking to the press, you feel like a jerk saying, "This is on background." Some time later, Jules and I were talking about the abortion issue. I was spouting off about how I thought the debate and dialogue had matured on both sides. To substantiate my point, I referenced the absence of screaming rhetoric with at unfortunate choice of words: "You don't see 'fetuses,' you don't see 'hangers' dominating the debate." It's an easy topic to get graphic about. He printed it.

My riff became the "Quote of the Day" in Hotline, the political junkie's bible. When I saw it I called Jules immediately.

"How could you do this to me?"

"You know the rules. You should have said, 'I'm on background.'"

It was a lesson I learned on the spot. He showed me not only how the system worked, but by cutting me no slack whatsoever, he taught me in practical terms that no one is going to give you anything. You can't call people back after something has come out of your mouth and say, "I meant that on background" and expect them to let you off the hook. It's a judgment call on their part. I have on more than one occasion really screwed up and had to go back and ask the reporter not to print something I'd said. I meant to say it on background or I didn't mean to say it at all. My usual line is "I'll give you my firstborn male child if you don't use it." If you're really in a lot of pain sometimes they'll let you slide. Of course, as the world works, that means next time you've got to give them some real juicy tidbits. You owe them.

You talk at your own peril. In the press it breaks out in the same way it does with all human beings: Some people have a strict code of honor which they adhere to under all circumstances, and some do not. You only learn who's honorable and who isn't through experience. There are blatant violations of the code, and spiritual violations. A blatant violation is obvious: A reporter quotes you after you've specified you're on background or off the record. You get really wary with that guy then; nothing is off the record, even when you specifically stipulate it's off the record.

Spiritual violations are trickier. Because of the way I talk, my rhetoric is identifiable. In the 1992 campaign if they used one of my "Maryspeak" lines unattributed (as in "a source close to the campaign"), they burned me. If a reporter quotes a background source in a way that's clearly identifiable, and they know it, that's a spiritual violation.

My gender also caused problems...