Repeated attempts to "change the channel" to pocketbook issues that traditionally favor Democratic candidates have flopped.

“This is all smoke and mirrors because the issue in this campaign is taxes, which candidate is going to raise them and which candidate is going to cut them,” Harris said. “Bill McBride doesn’t want that to be the focus so he’s trying to change the channel.”

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper tried to change the channel on a campaign of distractions Wednesday as he deftly neutralized the Afghan mission as an election issue.

[Big banks] have become the perfect foil for the White House as it tries to lead the Democratic Party out of its post-Massachusetts morass — and to change the channel from the seemingly unending debate over health insurance.

Hudema responded, “This government doesn’t want to have a public discussion on the industry’s disastrous safety record, or the toxic effects that spills from a 1,170-kilometre tarsands pipeline would have on indigenous rights, the Rocky Mountains, the B.C. coast, or the more than 1,000 rivers and streams this pipeline would cross. Instead, they try to change the channel by inventing scapegoats and bogeymen. […]”

Change the channel

Meaning

Verb