The BJ tries to report a story - and doesn't

THE BEACON JOURNAL'S strange coverage of the Summit County Republican Lincoln Day dinner in its Sunday edition left me wondering whether most of it wasn't handled by remote control with pre-program comments from a few admiring folks standing in line to buy Mike Huckabee's book. A couple of things stood out in the boilerplate article:

Although the BJ reported there were 1, 300 who assembled to hear the probable presidential candidate, Quaker Station's on-line reference in the Akron hotels list says the Grand Station Hall's capacity is 850. Huh? It's not unusual for pols to inflate the attendance and it does appear that the paper went for the hook.

The bigger hole in the story was the absence of Party Chairman Alex Arshinkoff, who is rehabbing away from home from critical foot surgery. A Republican source mentioned to me that it was Arshinkoff's first absence from a major county party event in 39 years. Seems to me, that deserved a place in an article stuck together as Journalism-Lite.

Finally, it was noted that Huckabee did not make himself available to the media; no questions, no answers, thank you. Folks, he gamed the BJ. He got the favorable publicity that noted that he is running second only to Mitt Romney, in Republican approval even though such polls tell us nothing. .

Newspapers should never allow this to happen. You want some positive free coverage, Mike, you damned well better make yourself available. But I am regressing to the days when it wouldn't have happened..

Besides the business about the book hustle, the only other thing we learned was about the fellow waiting to buy the book. He described Huckabee as a "good man" and a "Christian."

As matters stand in the GOP these days, invaluable style points, I'd say, for the ex-Arkansas preacher.