Doesn’t apply to the softball questions for the Democrat candidates.
Via CBS News
Running for president is, perhaps more than anything else, an exercise in answering questions: Who are you? What do you believe? How will you govern?
Sometimes, though, a presidential candidate (or potential candidate) decides that providing an answer could be more trouble than it’s worth, and executes that most time-tested of political maneuvers: the dodge.
It’s not always easy, particularly when these would-be presidents are under the klieg lights of a national campaign. They’ll absorb some blows from competitors who are eager to criticize their lack of candor. And they’ll only stoke the hunger of the news media, which have discovered their discomfort with the subject and will surely return to it as soon as possible.[…]
Split the difference
Walker wasn’t the only potential presidential candidate to trip up during a recent visit to London. In the U.K. earlier this month, Gov. Chris Christie, R-New Jersey, was asked about whether parents should be forced to vaccinate their kids in light of a recent measles epidemic that public health officials have blamed on a lack of universal immunization.[…]
Own up to your dodge
Ever since former President Bill Clinton acknowledged he’d smoked pot but “didn’t inhale,” politicians have been casting about for an artful response to questions about youthful marijuana use. Last year, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, stumbled on a new tactic when he was asked during an education forum whether he’s ever smoked marijuana.
“If I tell you that I haven’t, you won’t believe me,” Rubio said, according to the Associated Press. “And if I tell you that I did, then kids will look up to me and say, ‘Well, I can smoke marijuana because look how he made it.'”
It was a tricky balancing act on Rubio’s part: An attempt to be candid about the fact that he didn’t intend to be candid.