Josh Green has an interesting theory why Rand Paul, who did not talk about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the campaign trail at all, was suddenly tripped up by questions about it on the Rachel Maddow show.
Due to the recent demise of newspapers, especially on the local level, Senate candidates are no longer forced to face tough questioning on the local or state level. Paul was able to sail through by only offering stump speeches and never had an aggressive reporter pestering him about positions on issues he does not wish to talk about. He was therefore unprepared for Maddow.
Considering that part of the job of the press is to give us information about political candidates, its worth speculating about what this means for the amount of information we get about lower level candidates in general. This episode will probably also encourage political candidates to simply not talk to reporters. This is a lesson many politicians learn. Sarah Palin certainly did.
