February 09, 2012 12:00 AM UTC

FOX 31's Eli Stokols Rips Romney: "It Didn't Have To Be This Way"

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• by: Colorado Pols

A truly remarkable open letter sent today from lead political correspondent Eli Stokols of FOX 31 News to Mitt Romney’s campaign, in the aftermath of Romney’s unexpected defeat in Colorado’s GOP presidential caucus yesterday. Stokols has a theory worth considering:

Sure, you might still give Republicans their best chance to win Colorado come November — something that GOP caucuses, closed to the one-third of Coloradans who are registered independents, may not accurately reflect.

But your brand is now significantly tarnished in a critical swing state, one you seemed to have in your grasp.

And, honestly, it didn’t have to be this way…

This TV station, like many of our Denver competitiors, I’m sure, sent you multiple requests to interview Gov. Romney.

You didn’t respond.

I’ve heard you did take some questions from the media Saturday in Colorado Springs, which, based on your showing there, didn’t do you a whole lot of good.

When it came to talking to the Denver media, you gave us the silent treatment. Sure, we showed up at your rallies anyway and heard you spouting the same, tired talking points again and again.

We’ve talked a few times now about the local media’s abdication of responsibility when it came to accurately covering the often extreme statements of GOP presidential primary candidates this week. We cited examples from two papers, namely the Denver Post and the Durango Herald, publishing night-and-day different stories about the same speeches from Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich–based on the Herald choosing to cover what the candidates actually said.

Obviously that’s a big problem, but not the problem Stokols describes here with Mitt Romney’s campaign. Stokols’ point is about a candidate so obsessed with control over his image that he appears in-state, commits major gaffes and is subject to attacks from his opponents, but never engages with the local media in a way that might result in, as Stokols says in his letter, “a chance to humanize your candidate.” If anything, Stokols is being more accommodating than we would prefer: it’s not the press’s job to “humanize” a candidate, that’s the candidate’s job.

But there are limits to what even an accommodating press can do when you’re hiding from them.