President Obama To Hold First Full Press Conference Of The Year On GOP’s Super Tuesday

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney announced in a tweet Monday morning that “President Obama will hold a news conference with the White House press corps tomorrow afternoon.”

The presser will be the first full news conference of the year, and the fact that it falls on “Super Tuesday,” when Republican presidential candidates will vie for 419 delegates, is sure to cause a stir.

The possibility that the President’s press conference could steal some of the Republicans’ media thunder is something of a double-edged sword, of course. On the heels of his speech to AIPAC this weekend, the President will likely want to talk about foreign policy, and get out his message on the economy and energy. However, when news is made at these press conferences, it isn’t usually because things stayed on-message.

Aside from his own message, though, the President will likely be prepared for any number of questions that could dominate the news cycle, and which could be to his benefit, depending on how he answers them. He will surely be asked about his call to Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student who could prove to be Rush Limbaugh‘s Waterloo.

Along the same lines, he will also probably be asked about the Preventive Services Mandate that sparked the debate which led to Limbaugh’s attacks on Fluke, which would be a golden political opportunity to take advantage of the

The President has also faced intense pressure since he told Jake Tapper, over a year ago, that his position on same-sex marriage is “evolving.” Now that campaign 2012 is in near full swing, President Obama will be hard-pressed to ask for more time to think about it.

There are also countless campaign-related questions that could spark a newsworthy response, since the last time President Obama held a full presser like this, Herman Cain was the GOP frontrunner.

The Hill notes that President Obama has been criticized for skirting press conferences in favor of other formats, and details how he stacks up against his predecessors:

Obama has held more solo White House news conferences — 17 — than his predecessor, George W. Bush, who held 11 in his first three years in office. On the other hand, Obama has held far fewer news conferences than former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, who held 31 and 56 news conferences, respectively.

Obama has also been less likely to answer impromptu questions at photo-ops and other spur-of-the-moment sessions with reporters. Obama has only held 94 of these fewer short question-and-answer sessions, while predecessors George W. Bush and Clinton respectively held 307 and 493 in their first three years in office.

Obama is out-performing both Bush and Clinton when it comes to interviews, however. In his first three years in office, Obama has sat down for 408 interviews, compared to Bush’s 136 and Clinton’s 166.

In terms of total access, that means President Obama far eclipses former President George W. Bush, but trails former Pres. Clinton. However, since Clinton gave far fewer interviews, it’s entirely possible that President Obama has faced more questions than either of them did in their first three years.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.