A moment of reckoning may be upon us for the 2016 campaign.
9:17 PM: Megyn Kelly just announced that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are in a "dead heat" and Marco Rubio is third. However, most of the results have yet to come in.
Hillary Clinton is leading Bernie Sanders. But Kelly also said, "It is a dog fight for the lead in both parties."
Are you watching? Share your thoughts and observations below.
UPDATE: 10:05 PM - Fox's Ed Henry just announced that Martin O'Malley is suspending his campaign.
10:14: Brit Hume said Donald Trump "underperformed."
10:24: Fox projects Cruz the winner, followed by Trump. But watch Fox play up Rubio as the real winner. Megyn Kelly announced Cruz's win.
10:31: Mike Huckabee has suspended his campaign.
10:49 Trump is speaking now.
Fox went with Cruz speech over Clinton. After about a half hour, it dropped Cruz's lengthy speech to go to Bernie Sanders. Then Sanders was interrupted for the sake of playing Clinton. Then Fox cut off coverage of the caucus in favor of Megyn Kelly's analysis show, followed by Hannity.
Iowa graphic by AHC300 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Nothing against rural white America but Iowa isn’t very reflective of America which is why they front load their bizarre, inbred caucus system where a small percentage of a tiny electorate with a poor track record of picking presidents has a huge impact on American politics. It’s pathetic to see candidates prostitute themselves with ridiculous pandering to this non-representative voter block and spend more time and energy in a state that doesn’t really matter other than horse race ‘momentum’ than larger, more important and representative ones.
Okay, got that off my chest. So now I can start another rant re ditto New Hampshire. Okay, I’ll spare you. 😉
Fox News did a reasonable job covering the Iowa caucuses but, as expected, their narrative mostly concentrated on the Republicans with the Democrats as an afterthought.
For example, they displayed the raw returns for both parties on the bottom of the screen with entrance poll projections getting main billing in the top. It wasn’t until late in the night when the Republican race was decided Fox started to display Democratic entrance poll projections. I didn’t time the chatter but Republican blather appeared to dominate over Democratic blather.
Fox also appears to be putting their fingers on the scales trying to favor candidates by getting their digs in with Trump (who they’re been exchanging a war of words) and Hillary (who they loath and see as their greatest threat to a 2016 GOP victory).
Certainly Fox likes to mock Bernie as a Socialist but right now it’s gentle ribbing and often to only make the point how extreme the Democratic party has shifted and to emphasize how embarrassing his success is to Hillary (and also to smear her by saying she’s gone far, far left out of the mainstream to compete).
LOL — that’s what Ivana and Marla said . . .
But watch Fox play up Rubio as the real winner.
And watch Trump play up himself as the real winner . . .
10:31: Mike Huckabee has suspended his campaign.
What campaign?
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