Remember Sarah Palin?
2008 Election:
When Palin failed miserably in interviews, the RNC and GOP decided Palin would only be allowed to sit down with rightwinged Fox anchors. Even the GOP knew Sarah Palin was, and is, a buffoon.
So, as it turned out, the GOP 'bet' that they could avoid letting the voters see how ignorant and batshit crazy Sarah Palin is by keeping her away from the media and the GOP lost, by a landslide in 2008.
2012 Election:
Because of the "strategy" the GOP used with Sarah Palin, during the 2012 election cycle many people were wondering if the far rightwinged candidates would allow interviews with media other than Fox. Even so-called "moderate" Mitt Romney avoided all media as long as he could.
Daily Beast wrote with snark:
It wouldn’t be fair to say that Mitt Romney is hiding from the national media, exactly. Why, on Thursday morning he went on Fox & Friends, fielding such tough questions about his challenge to President Obama as: “You’re beating him with independents. How are you going to outdo him in that department?”Politicususa wrote~April 2012
Mitt Romney has had a long standing policy of avoiding the media at all costs. He broke with this to do a few interviews during his summer gaffe-filled diplomacy gone wrong tour, but he only allowed 6 questions in pressers during his entire tour.Romney, along with the GOP, thought they could keep Romney's batshit crazy, anti-American worker, anti-women, anti-minority, platform hidden from voters so long as the media was not allowed to ask Romney questions.~October 2012
Once again, on election night, by 9:00 PM EST the GOP lost, by a landslide.
2016 Elections:
Republican National Committee just voted, unanimously, to nix NBC and CNN from being GOP debate hosts for the 2016 presidential election -- yeah, cuz that strategy worked out so well for them with Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.