This is a post I copied from Facebook. It's something that has always irked me but something I haven't seen mentioned much before and never with actual numbers. The author said it was okay to repost this:
If we the people are genuinely the ultimate judges of these debates the media must stop manipulating the format to favor establishment favorites.
This is an interesting breakdown of the last debate (Fox News/Google).
Total Talk Time:
Romney 12:09
Perry 11:10
Huntsman 07:41
Santorum 07:06
Cain 06:23
Bachmann 06:13
Gingrich 05:44
Ron Paul 04:33
Johnson 04:10
Total 1:05:09
% of Total Talk Time
Romney 18.65%
Perry 17.14%
Huntsman 11.79%
Santorum 10.90%
Cain 9.80%
Bachmann 9.54%
Gingrich 8.80%
Ron Paul 6.98%
Johnson 6.40%
Turns Talking
Romney 15
Perry 13
Santorum 9
Huntsman 9
Bachmann 8
Gingrich 7
Cain 7
Ron Paul 6
Johnson 5
Total 79
#Questions, #Responses, #Follow-ups
Perry 8 - 4 - 1
Romney 8 - 5 - 2
Bachmann 7 - 1 - 0
Gingrich 7 - 0 - 0
Cain 7 - 0 - 0
Santorum 7 - 1 - 1
Ron Paul 6 - 0 - 0
Huntsman 6 - 2 - 1
Johnson 5 - 0 - 0
Total 61 - 13 - 5
Avg Time between Talks
Johnson 14:05
Ron Paul 09:31
Cain 08:16
Gingrich 07:56
Huntsman 07:11
Bachmann 07:10
Santorum 06:43
Romney 04:46
Perry 04:37
It's enough to make me spit nails. There is a better way."
This gentleman is absolutely right and we can't let the media lead us like this. I've thought this ever since Perry entered the race as the hands-down favorite when most of America had no idea what his stance was on anything.
