While most Americans are focused on the upcoming Iowa primary race and who's up and down in the polls among the GOP presidential primary contenders, Rachel Maddow asks, just who is winning the Murdoch primary, a subject as she noted that TPM's Josh Marshall started writing about back in August of this year.
All eyes are on Ames today. Except all the eyes on Rick Perry’s announcement in the aptly picked state of South Carolina. But wherever you point your eyes we’re now getting into the first real round of winnowing in the Republican presidential field. [...]
But watching Fox News’s coverage today reminded me of another primary which may be as important as New Hampshire or South Carolina in the GOP nominating process: the Murdoch primary.
Murdoch’s role in getting behind one or the other national candidates (parties) in UK elections is quite open. Cameron’s need to ease Murdoch back behind the Tories actually played some small role in his entanglement in the phone-hacking scandal. But that’s a story for another day. The process is somewhat known in New York, where the Post speaks for the Murdoch clan. But it’s no less true in UK national politics. Murdoch virtually always gets behind the Republican. But the question is, which one. And of course it’s not just the New York Post. It’s the centerpiece, Fox News, and for the more upscale folks it’s the new prize: the Wall Street Journal.
It’s one thing when the Republicans are out of office you can go to town trying to make a star out of a Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin. But now that we’re moving into the fast lane, what kind of treatment does Bachmann get in the Murdoch press? Even more interesting to watch will be the treatment of Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, the two men who at the moment at least appear to stand a real chance of securing the nomination. [...]
Keep watching: the coverage will be the tell.
And as Rachel asked, after watching the contrast between Bret Baier's grilling of Mitt Romney this Wednesday night and then Baier subsequently going on the air with Bill O'Reilly and basically accusing Romney of being a whiner and Newt Gingrich's hour long softball interview with Sean Hannity, which of those candidates are currently winning the Murdoch primary?
Media Matters has more on the Fox primary and who they've been giving air time and favorable coverage to here -- The Fox Primary By the Numbers, November 14 - 20.
