Massive Audience for Fox Debate Proves There Is an Overwhelming Thirst for Change in This Country

Friday - August 07, 2015

RUSH: I asked the staff on the other side of the glass exactly one hour ago to take a wild guess at who had the most camera time last night, who said the most, who had the most speaking time last night.  I will admit it was a trick question.  I did not say, "Which of the candidates...?" So the answers were the candidates, but that was not true.  The Fox the moderators dominated the debate last night. 

The candidate with the most airtime was Donald Trump.  "Time analysis compiled by a university political researcher finds frontrunner Donald Trump dominated last night’s Republican presidential debate, that is, if you don’t count the moderators. Fox News debate moderators allowed Trump speak the most of all the candidates, clocking in at 10 minutes, 32 seconds of air time." 

So you had... Stop and think about this, now.  You have a two-hour debate.  They took some time for commercial breaks.  Let's say... It's an hour and 40 minute actual program time, and I'm guessing at that.  The most time any of these guys had was 10 minutes 32 seconds, and he was not the most seen or most heard.  The Fox moderators had more time... In other words, the moderators had more time to ask their questions than the rules permitted the candidates to answer. 

"Former Gov. Jeb Bush -- stationed in the #2 podium due to his polling -- came in a relative distant second, with 8 minutes 31 seconds. The third-highest polling candidate -- Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker -- came in 9th place, being heard just over half of Trump's time. All told, the 10 candidates at the 9pm debate spoke 'a total of one hour, eight minutes, and 49 seconds …' According to Smart Politics, 'an equal distribution of speaking time would have been six minutes and 52 seconds per candidate.'"

Now, stop and think of that.  So here we have a two-hour debate -- and I know they had to put a limit on it. You got 10 people, 16 people, 17 people running. You can't put 'em all up there.  That's frankly... Look, I keep thinking of things here. The brain synapses fire and take me off my mark here.  This is why I expected somebody to make a comment about this.  I really did.  I blew this.  I thought somebody would, and I thought it was gonna be Trump, because he would be the logical candidate. 

I thought somebody would say, "This is the exact wrong way to be doing this.  We have been doing these debates all this time and what do we have to show for it? We're gonna speak here five minutes, seven minutes, whatever it is. Nobody's gonna learn anything here tonight," and then when you add to that, it was... I mean, the first half of this debate was Beat Up the Candidates.  The first half of the debate was Trash the Candidates.

Beat Up the Candidates. Trash the Candidates. Make the Candidates Justify Their Existence. Make Them Justify Things They've Said in the Past, Done in the Past (or what have you).  You know, there's another line of demarcation out there, I think.  We just had a caller who referenced his belief that the Washington and New York political class really even now, despite the Tea Party, does not know how much anger and fear, genuine fright for the future there is among average, ordinary Americans who are not in the political class. 

I think accompanying that is something similar.  The people our caller was referring to, call them the Tea Party, call them the Republican base, just call them the people that make the country work, as far as I'm concerned.  And I'm gonna lump myself in with you.  These are gravely serious times.  We have witnessed, in our view, the Democrat Party take dead aim at the heart of this country with the intention of blowing it up and putting it back together in a way you and I won't recognize.  Obama has promised it, and he's doing it, his claim to transform this country. 

We know that there is no difference now between Democrats and socialists, and we know that they're not happy with the way the country's founded. They're never happy about anything.  They're constantly enraged and angry.  And right before our very eyes the traditions, the institutions that have provided the guardrails, the firm foundation, and even the launch pads for success, they're all under assault. They're all under attack.  I didn't get that impression watching the debate last night except from two or three people. 

I didn't get at all from the moderators that that is the status quo, that that's where we are.  In large part what I gathered watching this last night was, "It's another election season. Hey, it's time for another presidential campaign! Hey, let's start with the debates!"  But this stuff isn't happening in a vacuum.  Now, thankfully we had a lot of good candidates up there, and they made some, on their own initiative, references to some of these things, like Obamacare and like the deal with Iran and ISIS and foreign policy and so forth.

But there was only one candidate who laid the blame at the feet of the Democrat Party, and that happened the five o'clock debate, and that was Carly Fiorina who said the Democrat Party is destroying the character of our country.  See, I'm kind of old-fashioned.  We have spent the last 6-1/2, seven or whatever it is years with the policies of Democrat Party implemented time and time again, and they're having a demonstrably destructive effect. But you would have never known it watching that debate last night, and that's one of the things that bothered me about it. 

Our guys are not the problem.  I know we have some guys on that stage who want amnesty.  I know we have some people on that stage who don't like conservatives.  But even so, not a one of them has really been in positions of power to implement anything, other than some of the governors.  Scott Walker's done great things with his governorship.  So there's a lot of potential there. But I just found there to be an elephant in the room that wasn't mentioned or discussed. 

I understand, also. This is not a professional criticism.  I'm just as John Q. Citizen telling you what I reacted to last night, at something I was hoping to hear more of.  I mean, if what Rand Paul told me is right, if the Republican Party cannot win with simply getting Republican votes alone anymore -- if we're gonna need votes from people that are not Republican -- it means to me that we're gonna have to explain to some people voting for Democrats why they're making a mistake. 

Forums like that last night -- and there will be others.  This is why I'm not putting a nail in a coffin here.  This is just the first, and hopefully as the field winnows, the subject matter will change and eventually things I hope to hear will be said.  But we don't know that yet, so we only have last night to go on and to analyze. But all that having been said, there were some terrific answers. There was a lot of poise on that stage, and as I said once, I'll say it again:

Any of those people on that stage last night I would take over Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden or Martin O'Malley or the Starbucks guy, who they're now saying is toying with getting in the race. What is it, Howard Schultz, Harold Schultz, George Schultz, Fred Schultz, Ed Schultz? Whatever his name is. (interruption) Schwartz? What is it? It's Schultz, isn't it?  Starbucks guy?  (interruption)  Yeah.  It's Schultz.  So the moderators -- Chris Wallace, Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier -- spoke for basically 32 minutes. 

They had 31.7% of the time last night.  And New York Times:  "Fox News Moderators Bring a Sharpened Edge to the Republican Debate Stage." CNN loved the way Fox News performed.  MSNBC thought Fox did the best job it's ever done last night.  Second story in the New York Times is praising Fox, hurray for Fox News. "A Foxy, Rowdy Republican Debate."

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The official number is in on the size of the audience.  Twenty-four million people watched the Fox News debate.  I don't care what debate you want to go back to, a primary debate, there's nothing that gets close to this.  Twenty-four million! The overnight was 10 million, but they metered just a few markets overnight, and then they try to make a projection from that. 

Later in the day (which is now), they actually do it. The Nielsen people do what they do to come up with an actual number, and since everybody accepts it, whatever they say it is, it is.  Twenty-four million people watched the debate can last night.  Some of you are gonna think, "Oh, my God, what an opportunity blown!"  Others of you are gonna think, "Oh, man! Oh, man! That many people saw it?  Cool." We'll find out.