Leadership Quote by Scott McCallum

A politician rarely admits the obvious about modern campaigns: reality isn’t what happens, it’s what voters think they’ve been shown. McCallum’s line is a neat act of blame-shifting dressed up as media critique, and its real target isn’t the press so much as the audience’s trust. He’s not arguing the coverage was inaccurate; he’s arguing it felt unfair. That distinction matters because “fair shake” is an emotional metric, not an evidentiary one, and it lets a campaign convert unfavorable stories into proof of persecution.

The Wisconsin aside - “much different than many other races” - is a strategic isolation clause. It frames his situation as exceptional, implying a localized bias rather than a national narrative. That’s useful for a statewide candidate: you can’t rage against “the media” in the abstract and still expect endorsement boards and local TV to treat you as a serious governing option. So he narrows it, making the complaint sound empirical (“in the polling”) and almost reluctant (“I will say”).

Subtextually, he’s describing a feedback loop: if voters believe coverage is slanted, they discount negative reporting, rally to the candidate out of resentment, and interpret criticism as confirmation. It’s inoculation, the political version of a vaccine: pre-load the idea of unfairness so future hits land softer.

Context is the late-20th/early-21st century playbook, when campaigns learned that attacking the referee can be more effective than arguing the call. McCallum is signaling to supporters: if we’re down, it’s not because we’re wrong; it’s because the story was rigged.