COMMENTARY | Newt Gingrich is surging in certain polls with certain selections of people (to weigh them in a certain direction). However, he seems to not really have a large following in real life. Charleston College has a four-day event in which Gingrich was scheduled to speak. With only minutes before time to speak, there were very few people actually there and he was forced to cancel.
The campaign’s official story is they wanted to allocate more time for their visit to the children’s hospital. At the same event at Charleston College, Ron Paul had an audience of over a thousand. Paul has entire legions of people that arrive at each event he goes to. These people would like to hear his real views, not his specific misinterpreted quotes with a media spin on them.
The latest poll everyone is referencing and that I’m talking about has 505 already registered Republicans that are likely to vote in this primary. This means they voted in the last primary and are probably not younger voters (which seems biased).
This also means that their sample does not involve the democrats or the independents. Paul is looked down on for his support from these three groups. The fact is, that’s the vote that wins you an election. Why would that be treated as a negative thing? The South Carolina primary is an open primary. Any resident in South Carolina can vote in the primary.
The media’s limited coverage is made more apparent based on the crowd attending the Thursday night Republican Debate hosted by CNN. CNN tends to pick favorites and things that elicit attention as I suppose do most corporate media organizations. This is why John King started the debate with Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife’s recent interview.
It is interesting when the crowd becomes aware of the direction the media is going, and is in a position to do something about it. During the debate, King kept the debate about abortion focused on the three candidates who were not doctors. He was ready to completely move on to the next topic without giving Paul a say. This is where the crowd intervened.
They began to boo and shout Paul’s name. John King was put on the spot, and had no choice but to defer to Paul. Paul responded: “John, once again, it’s a medical subject and I’m a doctor” to roaring applause.
Our biased friends over at CBS liked to think Paul lost this debate. Those that actually watched the debate would see that he was being largely ignored by the moderator. When he did speak, he had the support of the entire crowd. The People are talking. Why can’t the media report on that?