Editorial: Focus on GOP candidates’ policies, not personalities

Pop quiz: How much do you know about presidential candidate Newt Gingrich?

If you’re like… Pop quiz: How much do you know about presidential candidate Newt Gingrich?

If you’re like most Americans, you’ll volunteer three facts: He was speaker of the house in the mid- to late-’90s, he had an affair during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and he’s been married multiple times. His policies and ideology remain nebulous — a footnote in the more well-known narrative of his personal life.

Unless you’re a political journalist, we don’t blame you for your limited breadth of knowledge: Thus far, the coverage surrounding the Republican presidential race has by and large focused on a single topic: candidates’ eccentricities. Gingrich and his wife’s enormous credit line with jewelry company Tiffany & Co. between 2005 and 2006 has been the subject of countless news stories over the past few weeks. His flip-flopping on Paul Ryan’s budget plan has merited considerably less attention. With the exception of certain frontrunners — Mitt Romney is typically critiqued in relation to his Massachusetts government-mandated health insurance plan — character is the chief criterion by which candidates are analyzed.

Accordingly, the more colorful the contender, the more media attention he’ll garner. Take, for example, the only recently dissipated frenzy surrounding former presidential hopeful Donald Trump, whose lack of a coherent agenda didn’t stop news outlets like The New Yorker, The New York Times and Slate from fervently publicizing his egotistical charades — making him, for a time, the most visible figure in the entire race. And now that’s he’s stepped down, there are other, equally ostentatious candidates that will likely take his place. The Tea Party-cheerleading Michele Bachmann, the ever-unpredictable Sarah Palin and even the outspoken but politically inexperienced former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, Herman Cain.

We don’t think this cult of celebrity is damaging merely because it obscures the merits of worthy candidates. Rather, it changes the nature of the race. When politicians are noticed only for outsized personalities, it forces everyone to campaign accordingly, inflating their stage presence and streamlining their agendas.

Of course, if our previous experience is any indication, the media’s fixation on personality will eventually abate. Journalists are wary of making too big a hubbub about a candidate’s stance on a certain issue early in the race for fear that every candidate will turn out to share that person’s position. Once the lineup thins out, probing candidates’ policies will become considerably safer.

Nevertheless, the current one-dimensionality of coverage is disheartening and sells short some of the most viable figures in the race.

In fact, here’s another pop quiz: Ever heard of Jon Huntsman Jr.? A former ambassador to China with business experience and a socially moderate outlook, the erstwhile governor of Utah might just be the most genuine threat to the Obama presidency if he indeed decides to run. But Huntsman is not an eccentric, and he has little in his personal life to merit attention, besides perhaps his Mormon faith. So for the time being, his more flamboyant, more illustrious colleagues have largely precluded his entrance into the public consciousness.

We’ll likely hear more about Huntsman later down the line — Time Magazine, at least, recently profiled him — but for now, he’s an extra in a show devoted to the Sarah Palins of the GOP. Hopefully the media will readjust its priorities before the end of the Republican primaries.