No one could have predicted...

LA Times:

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton embrace Fox News

Both Democratic contenders have stepped up their appearances, reaching out for swing voters who might be watching the populist-oriented channel.

By Matea Gold, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 2, 2008
NEW YORK -- Just a year ago, Fox News Channel was considered a pariah in many Democratic circles. But it appears that the cable news network is no longer in the doghouse.

Consider this week: On Sunday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made a long-awaited appearance on "Fox News Sunday," a booking that host Chris Wallace had been seeking for more than two years. (The show airs on both the Fox broadcasting network and its sister cable channel.) On Wednesday, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) granted her first interview to Bill O'Reilly, a commentator viewed with antipathy by much of the left, in no small part because of his denunciations of the Clintons in the 1990s. And this coming Sunday, Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean plans to sit down with Wallace for the first time since November 2006.

Last year at this time, liberal activists pressured Democrats to stay off the news channel, which they termed a "Republican mouthpiece," successfully scuttling plans for two Fox-hosted debates. Obama and Clinton, wary of offending the party's base, largely steered clear of Fox News interviews.

These days, the candidates are not so standoffish.

NY Times:

Democrats and Fox News Make Friends
By BRIAN STELTER

Standing in front of a television camera last week, the chairman of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign, Terry McAuliffe, uttered four words that the Fox News Channel would not soon forget.

"Fair and balanced Fox!," he exclaimed, noting that the network was the first to project Mrs. Clinton’s Pennsylvania primary win.

Fox executives could not have asked for a more rousing endorsement. The next day it showed up in promotions.

All of a sudden, the once-frosty relationship between Fox News and the Democratic candidates seems to have grown warmer. Mrs. Clinton and Barack Obama, who steadfastly refused to attend Fox-sponsored debates last year, are now giving plenty of interviews as they court Fox’s viewers, who are largely white, conservative and undecided.

Populist-oriented?

Oh, my head!

But hey, no one could have predicted that Fox would use these appearances for PR purposes, right?

So there you have it. For everyone who was so sure this was brilliant, because the candidates were "reaching out," apparently we forgot that the traditional media would still have an opportunity to define for America to whom they were reaching out. Fans of the candidates assured us that it was (pick one): 1) swing voters; 2) open-minded conservatives (ha!), or; 3) people who had lost their TV remotes. But gosh darn it if the Fox PR machine hasn't schooled us all. It was populists! Which means both Clinton and Obama -- and all Democrats, by extension -- are elitists.

Well played, all around! Here's to more such "successes!"

Remember, when you reach out, you leave your face unguarded. Some people are going to take that opportunity to slap you one.