Option 1 in the continuing battle of the Republican Party and the media is the approach of Rich Galen:

Rand Paul’s official campaign began with a speech on Tuesday.

By yesterday he had been in arguments with two reporters.

First he went at it with the Today show’s Savannah Guthrie. Guthrie, according to National Journal.

“You once said Iran was not a threat,” Guthrie said to Paul. “Now you say it is. You once proposed ending foreign aid to Israel. You now support it, at least for the time being. And you once offered to drastically cut defense spending but now you want to increase it by 60 percent.”

At that time Paul tried to interrupt and said,

“Before we go through a litany of things you say I’ve changed on, why don’t you ask me a question: ‘Have I changed my opinion?’”

After Guthrie tried again, Paul said:

“Listen, you’ve editorialized. Let me answer a question. You ask a question, and you say, ‘Have your views changed?’ instead of editorializing and saying my views have changed.”

That is a difference without a distinction, if you ask me, which Rand Paul did not.

Later in the day, he got cranky again, this time with an AP reporter who asked him about his position(s) on abortion.

According to The Hill newspaper, “AP reporter Philip Elliott’s interview with Paul became heated after Elliott pressed the presidential candidate to say whether victims of rape should be able to get abortions.”

Paul told Elliott:

“I gave you about a five-minute answer. Put in my five-minute answer … The thing is about abortion – and about a lot of things – is that I think people get tied up in all these details of, sort of, you’re this or this or that, or you’re hard and fast (on) one thing or the other.”Not bad for the first 24 hours of the campaign.

Some Republicans have made a living arguing with reporters. During the 2012 cycle, Newt Gingrich would wait for a moderator to ask a “gotcha” question so he could launch into a tirade.

The GOP audiences stomped and cheered but Rand Paul is no Newt Gingrich when it comes to baiting reporters.

There used to be a saying in politics, “Never argue with the guy who buys his ink by the barrel.”

Given the number of on-line outlets, former Governor Tom Ridge has updated that to:

“Never argue with the guy who buys his bandwidth by the gigabyte.”My background is as a press secretary. When I was doing that I wasn’t the “Communications Director” with a staff of thousands. When I was Dan Quayle’s Senate press secretary I was it. Same thing when I was press secretary to Newt with he was Republican Whip. My successors were also one-man shows.

Having been press secretary to Quayle and Gingrich and having run GOPAC you might think that reporters would have crossed the street rather than have to say “hello” to me in Washington.

That has never been the case because I have lived by three rules:

First, “Don’t sell out your boss to curry favor with the press.” They will treat you like cops treat a stool pigeon. They’ll use you until you have nothing for them, then they’ll lose your number.

Second, “You don’t have to know everything about everything.” Some of the smartest responses I’ve ever given to reporters have been the ones where I said “I don’t know,” rather than trying to pretend I was on the inside of everything.

Third, “Don’t lie.” You don’t have to tell a reporter everything you know; and you can be slippery with an answer, but if you lie you will, sooner or later, get caught and your credibility will be shot.

Part of being a good press secretary is to brief your boss on what questions might be asked, and how you recommend they be answered.

Even the best press secretary won’t catch them all, but by having your boss prepared, over time, reporters will come to appreciate the effort.

To battle reporters all day every day is exhausting for the candidate and for the staff and, because they buy their bandwidth by the gigabyte, if they can’t make your boss look bad in an article, they can do it in a blog. If not in a blog then in a Tweet.

Dealing with reporters is just another skill candidates have to develop.

Approach number two comes from Jon Gabriel:

This new generation of GOP hopefuls understands what only Newt Gingrich knew in 2012. If you want a chance at the White House, you need to beat the other candidates and you need to beat the press.

Mitt Romney, decent fellow that he is, tacitly accepted the press’ claims of objectivity, even if he didn’t believe it in his heart. Romney grinned and nodded at reporters from CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC, even though their initials could have been DNC.

Right-leaning partisans watched moderator George Stephanopoulos concoct the fictional “War on Women” and moderator Candy Crowley actively support Obama during live debates. Many of us spent 2012 yelling at our TVs and laptop screens, “the press isn’t neutral. They’re on the other side!”

Coming of age during the Obama years, the 2016 candidates know all too well that the press is as much of an opponent as the rival campaigns. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Scott Walker all know that the mainstream media despises them. This new breed acts accordingly by questioning the press and their flawed premises.

After Planned Parenthood spent all yesterday attacking Sen. Paul, two reporters coincidentally asked him if he would accept any exemptions on abortion. Come on, senator: is there no limit to your cruel oppression of women? Paul knew the fix was in and responded accordingly.

“Here’s the deal — we always seem to have the debate waaaaay over here on what are the exact details of exemptions, or when it starts,” Paul said, moving his hand to one side. “Why don’t we ask the DNC: Is it okay to kill a seven-pound baby in the uterus? You go back and you ask Debbie Wasserman-Schultz if she’s okay with killing a seven-pound baby that is not born yet. Ask her when life begins, and you ask Debbie when it’s okay to protect life. When you get an answer from Debbie, get back to me.”

Paul knows that Democrats rarely get questions about whether they support partial-birth abortion, if gender selection is acceptable, or if parental consent should be required. The press naturally doesn’t want to put their candidates on the hot seat, so why ask them hot-button questions? Instead, just let the Republicans sweat and damage their chances among low-info voters. To his credit, Paul didn’t play along with this old game; he questioned the premise and threw it back in the reporters’ faces.

Instead of waiting for her newsroom allies, Wasserman-Schultz released a huffy statement. “Here’s an answer,” the DNC Chair wrote. “I support letting women and their doctors make this decision without government getting involved. Period. End of story.”

She forgot to mention that Obamacare ensures government is intimately involved with this life-or-death decision, but I appreciate the clarity. To use Paul’s phrasing, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and the Democratic National Committee are okay with killing a seven-pound baby in the uterus. She doesn’t care when life begins and has no intention of protecting the life of any baby in the womb, even if it’s a minute from being delivered. The baby can be killed anytime and for any reason. Period. End of story.

I hope the other GOP candidates are taking notes. They need to stop trying to placate the reporters who hate them and go on offense for a change. Like Gingrich and Paul, use a little verbal jujitsu to trip up the Democrat-Media Complex. Beltway liberals are wildly out-of-touch with the average voter’s values and concerns. Use that to our advantage.

In two minutes, I came up with several questions to ask of Hillary Clinton and her supporters. It’s only fair that moderate voters know her answers:

• “Do you believe that Officer Darren Wilson racially profiled Mike Brown? Explain.”
• “Will you have a gender-neutral bathroom in the White House? Why isn’t there one now?”
• “What made you finally agree with Dick Cheney that same-sex marriage should be legalized?”
• “How much should taxes be increased to combat climate change? Did your record-setting number of State Department trips contribute to the problem?”
• “Should we increase immigration while African-American unemployment is at record highs?”

Have at it, press corps; prove your neutrality. And Republicans, prove that you’ll be able to handle the hostile press if and when you get to the Oval Office.

One of the comments on Gabriel’s piece mentions option 2.5:

But when dealing with adversarial media, you should never agree to an interview without your own camera recording the whole thing and reserving the right to publish it in its entirety.

I first heard of this strategy on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page in the 1980s and used it in my own take-down of one of their attack reporters in a front page hit piece in 1992.  (Keep hitting “Next” for the transcript and a link to the audio recording.)

It doesn’t reach the low-information people, but forever discredits the “attack reporter” and the outlet which employs him or her.  Further, it alerts others potential victims to do the same.

It is also intensely entertaining.

I’d like to see a candidate, ideally all of them, make regular postings on YouTube with “What I said” versus “What you saw”.

Of course, it’s never been clear to me that a candidate’s going to war with the news media helps that candidate’s standing with undecided, independent voters.