Rachel Maddow came up with a rather convincing case that Fox News rigged its selection process for the first Republican presidential candidates’ debate tomorrow night.
From Raw Story:
Maddow explained that Fox originally said it would use the five most recent polls to determine which candidates would make it into Thursday’s debate. However, the network ended up ignoring an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll conducted between July 26 and 30 showing Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Ohio Gov. John Kasich within one percentage point of each other and instead used a Quinnipiac University poll gathered between July 23 and 28 showing Kasich ahead by three percentage points.
Politico reported that Fox said it dismissed the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, “because it did not meet our criterion that the poll read the names of each Republican candidate in the vote question.” Politico also noted that even if Fox had used the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, that “would not have altered the composition of the top 10.”
But Maddow had some interesting observations about that. For one thing, Fox never said its criterion required “the names of each Republican candidate be read in the vote question.”
Maddow showed a Fox press release stating that candidates, “must place in the top 10 of an average of the five most recent national polls, as recognized by FOX News leading up to August 4th at 5PM/ET. Such polling must be conducted by major, nationally recognized organizations that use standard methodological techniques.”
“That’s it,” Maddow said, and “not just, like, the shorthand public reference for some longer, more explicit explanation that they made elsewhere. …That’s all they have said.”
So why did Fox suddenly come up with this new criterion? Maddow pointed out that while most of the polls “have the same basic contours” and produce “roughly the same results.” The “salient difference” between the poll that Fox threw out and the one it kept was at the bottom of the poll, where getting into the debate or not means probable life or death for the candidate.
In the Quinnipiac poll that Fox used instead of the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, Kasich beat Perry by 5-2, “more than doubling him,” as Maddow put it.
“That decision has the effect of making John Kasich look like he is way more clearly ahead of Rick Perry than he would look otherwise,” Maddow said.
Maddow’s theory is that Fox, knowing “how consequential their decision” was, did not want the cutoff to appear “totally arbitrary.” An “exceedingly close call would look way too obvious that Fox has, in fact, perverted the course of the Republican primary to end candidacies that might otherwise have worked out in the end,” Maddow argued.
I think there’s another factor in play here, too. Kasich only recently declared his candidacy and thus has had to play catch up. But he’s an extremely viable candidate, probably more so than Perry. Just as importantly, if not more so, Kasich is the sitting governor of Ohio, the state where the debate is being held. Fox would want Kasich - who's also a former Fox host, by the way - in the 10-candidate debate and would not want to look like it put him there. With the Quinnipiac poll, Kasich has a little more shine and Fox looks a little less like a puppetmaster.
Or at least Fox thought that would be the case.
Watch Maddow’s persuasive argument below, from the August 4 The Rachel Maddow show.
It does raise Rubio and Paul (a hair) closer to center stage. I did think the last one positioned them too low. I can see Ailes not liking Rubio’s softening on immigration and being too establishment for Paul. Can’t find a way to dump them but certainly would get a thrill up his elderly leg with a slight.
10 clowns on the stage is far too many anyway. I’m not sure I’ll be able to watch this circus because my doctor warns me laughing too hard risks rupturing my hernia. ;^)
God knows I’m no fan of Fox, but this is ridiculous. Maddow was determined there would be some malfeasance on the part of Fox on the poll thing, but all she could do was to try — totally unconvincingly to me — to claim that there was something fishy, despite the fact that the result would have been the same no matter which poll they chose for the 5th one.
And Newshounds bought it? Have we on the left really descended so low?
Does anybody really believe that crediting Kasich with a couple tenths of a point more than he “deserved” when he’s at the rock bottom of the group either way has the faintest, slightest impact on anything since he would be in the first tier debate anyway?
This is absurd. Fox doesn’t commits enough sins every hour of every day that we have to make one up?
So, it wouldn’t surprise me if Roger is putting his middle finger on the scales to tip them how he sees fit. Heck, Ailes de facto runs the Republican Party so why not?
That said, I doubt it’ll make much of a difference. The bottom feeders Kasich, Perry, Santorum, Graham, Fiorina, Pataki, Jindal, and certainly my former governor Gilmore – who can’t even win the Senate – duking it out to sit at the dinner table with the adults versus the card table with the kiddies in the junior debate aren’t that viable, imho.
Most circuses only have 3 rings so I’m pretty sure Fox News could’ve gotten away with Trump, Bush, and Walker. Though a 50-50 chance of Trump self-destructing short of the finish line with his foot firmly stuck in his mouth might be an argument for a 4th back-up. Then, yeah, it gets sticky because one clown like Huckabee or Carson or Cruz is good as the next bozo.
Rubio and Paul who have paid their dues on the Sunday talk show circuit for years I thought were serious threats but lack so much traction they’ll be midgets sitting with the other grown-ups which won’t boost their stature. Waste of podiums.
As it is with 10 on the set after questions, commercials, burps, and farts there’s like 10 minutes for each candidate to make a complete fool of themselves. Hmm… for these clowns time enough! ;^)
