Odd: Biden Spox Tweets 'Virtual High Five' to Reporters Covering Campaign, Explanation for Why Makes It Worse

AP featured image — Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event with his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., at Alexis Dupont High School in Wilmington, Del., Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

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What with mainstream media reporters no longer pretending to be objective when it comes to covering the presidential election, it only stands to reason that the Democrats who run Joe Biden’s campaign are now feeling a little freer to let their hair down openly acknowledge the chummy relationship they have with the journalists who are traveling with the campaign.

Such was the case Wednesday night, two nights after Biden’s team announced Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) won the veepstakes, and the same night that Biden and Harris appeared together as running mates for the first time.

Kate Bedingfield, who is the deputy campaign manager and comms director for Joe Biden, tweeted this “shoutout” and “virtual high five” to “our beat reporters”, stating at the end that “We did it, guys”:

Shoutout to all of our beat reporters for surviving some of the most painful news cycles of any presidential campaign. Virtual high five to all of you. We did it, guys. 🎉

— Kate Bedingfield (@KBeds) August 12, 2020

“We”? Who is “we”? And what did they (“we”) do? And what’s this with “our”? Is she talking about the Biden-Harris campaign and reporters working together on some sort of political mission or something?

When Trump campaign rapid response director Andrew Clark noted that the “we” was very telling, Bedingfield dug a deeper hole:

The "we" here is quite revealing. https://t.co/aBfBAAgfXv

— Andrew Clark (@AndrewHClark) August 12, 2020

Yes, “we” – the campaign and the press – who work together everyday, often at odds with each other. Very complicated, I know. https://t.co/P2kOJOlzBU

— Kate Bedingfield (@KBeds) August 12, 2020

So they “work together everyday, often at odds with each other” which, quite frankly, sounds like a lot of workplace environments around the country.

Except in a presidential campaign, the reporters who travel with the candidate are not supposed to be “working together” at all. The reporters are there to cover the candidate and the campaign, not to cover for them. At least that’s how I thought it was supposed to work (I’m sure someone in my Twitter mentions will correct me if I’m wrong here).

This was “quite revealing” indeed – and not in a good way.