John LeBoutillier
Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2001

Today's New York Post reports that Condit is planning for his annual "Condit Country" $35 per head political fund-raiser to be held in October. A Modesto-area Democrat told the Post, "A lot of people think he's crazy and don't know how in the world he comes back from this. But it looks like he's going to try. It looks like he'll try to run against the media."

USA TODAY is reporting that Condit's first public explanation of his involvement in the Chandra Levy Case may come in a Modesto 'Town Forum' – to be broadcast nationally – with a packed audience of "Democratic Party workers and loyalists."

Let us examine Condit's political strategy:

1) Running against the media is an effective tactic – provided the public believes the media has unfairly treated you. In such a case there is often a sympathetic backlash. But has Condit been unfairly treated?

He clearly lied to the Levy family at first when denying he had an affair with their daughter.

He clearly philandered with Anne Marie Smith, Chandra and Joline McKay, the former staffer who gave him the watch.

He surreptitiously dumped that watch box in Virginia just hours before a police search of his apartment.

And – perhaps worst of all – he claims not to remember if he had sex with Chandra the last time he saw her on April 24.

None of these statements or actions have anything to do with the media – and none are likely to engender sympathy for Condit.

2) Packing the crowd with Democratic party hacks could be his biggest blunder yet. It will not only seem rigged but it will also spread the Condit Condition into the Democratic Party. So far, the Democrats have been wary of siding in public with Condit. But if he packs an audience it automatically becomes even bigger than just his own misdeeds. It now becomes a spectacle – with his own political party as a willing accomplice in yet another pathetic attempt to wriggle off the hot seat.

3) This 'Town Forum' will be a media disaster if the questions are only asked by loyalists, friends and local campaign workers. First, the media will clamor for answers – and will be doubly frustrated by their inability to ask the pertinent questions. Second, they will report this 'First Time Condit Talks' session as a stacked deck – thus furthering Condit's dissembling reputation.

4) Where is Abbe Lowell? We have not seen him since the now infamous Friday the 13th 5:00 p.m. press conference where he announced that "Congressman Condit has taken and passed a polygraph." Lowell, a prototypical media hog, hasn't been seen on TV since. Strange. During the Clinton Impeachment Saga, you couldn't keep him off the tube. But now he has disappeared. It was reported that he was off to Europe for a 10-day vacation – and also that he is negotiating with a major media outlet for a nationally televised interview. That was before Condit went home and ginned up this latest 'Town Forum' gambit.

Lowell – media savvy – knows it is incongruous to personally offend the media by shunning them in favor of stacked-deck phony event and then to try to run against the media.

What Camp Condit needs to do is simple: Either answer each and every question in a massive Gerry Ferraro-type press conference – or go away.

To try to stay in public life while refusing to answer to the public is ludicrous – and it can't and won't work.

Condit is a U.S. congressman, which means that he is more than just from Modesto; he represents us all.

He is linked to a missing woman with whom he had an illicit, adulterous affair – and about whom he lied and equivocated.

He is clearly divorced from reality and his already shattered career is about to implode in the crosscurrents of conflicting legal and political strategies.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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