The changing of the guard at CNN, which began with Lou Dobbs vacating the weeknight anchor chair and John King assuming that spot, culminates this week with Candy Crowley taking over the “State of the Union” Sunday political show formerly anchored by King.
Smart moves all the way around: Leaving behind the opinionated grandstanding that was the hallmark of the Dobbs era can only be an advantage for CNN, which has seen its ratings fall behind rival Fox News in recent months. While both Fox and MSNBC have capitalized on politically opinionated hosts, CNN has done best sticking to the editorial center.
Crowley, CNN’s senior political correspondent who brings a wry sense of humor and great writing skills to the task, joins the ranks of inside-the-Beltway anchors on Sunday.
Locally, “State of the Union” airs at 7 a.m. on CNN. “State of the Union” has been cut to one hour, followed by “Fareed Zakaria GPS” at 8 a.m., “Reliable Sources” at 9 a.m. and an updated edition of “State of the Union” at 10 a.m.
The network Sunday sitdowns have seen notable churn since the Tim Russert era. For now, Crowley is up against David Gregory anchoring NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Bob Schieffer at the helm of CBS’ “Face the Nation” and, temporarily George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” (that job hasn’t been filled permanently since Stephanopoulos’ move to “Good Morning America”).
Crowley becomes the only woman anchoring a Sunday political talk show, and the first since Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson stopped co-anchoring ABC’s “This Week” in 2002.
“I told the staff Sunday that I think a lot of what people miss about pure politics is, there’s a lot of fun in it,” she said by phone from Washington, D.C. “Sometimes it gets too serious. We foget to step back and say ‘this is ridiculous.’ Some of its nonsensical. I hope to bring all that to the table.”
She may also contribute a weekly piece about “something that catches my fancy.”
Crowley is somewhat surprised to be told she is often very funny on the air, in a droll way.
“I’m not a pa-dum-bum” person,” she said. “I come from Michigan and Missouri, so I have a dry prairie wit. I guess more people get it than I thought.”
In general, she said, “I don’t know how how you can cover politics and not have a sense of humor.” That’s because politics is “a combination Shakespearian drama of life and death, theater of the absurd, and a little guerilla street theater.”
She says she is not focused on the ratings, but on making her show “user-friendly,” and claims to be free of bias toward either political party.
“I can honestly tell you, as I have covered politics for the last couple of decades, I have become less sure of the answers to absolutely everything. Everything is less clear the more you know about it.”
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
