CBS’s “Face the Nation” has two presidential contenders on this morning. One of them is even competitive.
Bob Schieffer previews this Sunday’s “Face the Nation” with two Republican presidential candidates — Michele Bachmann and Jon Huntsman
Seeing Huntsman’s name on the schedule got me thinking: haven’t we seen quite a bit of him lately?
On Friday, Huntsman was on CNBC’s “The Kudlow Report.” On Thursday, he was on Fox News’ “On The Record with Greta Van Susteren.” On Wednesday, he was CNN’s “John King, USA.” Last week, Huntsman was on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight,” and was scheduled to be on NBC’s “Meet the Press” (though the latter was canceled due to hurricane coverage).
I realize the presidential campaign is effectively in full swing right now, so it’s hardly a surprise that candidates will be making plenty of media appearance on broadcast television.
But in all sincerity, when was the last time we saw a candidate with this little support generating quite this much media love?
It’s hard to overstate how poorly Huntsman is doing. Among Republican voters nationwide, the latest Fox News poll shows him running last with 1% support. The latest Quinnipiac poll shows him running last with 1% support. The latest CNN poll shows him running last with 1% support. The latest Gallup poll shows him running last with 1% support.
There seems to be a pattern here.
And yet, Huntsman has been booked for three Sunday shows in three weeks, and is all over the media.
I’m trying to think of a comparable situation, but nothing comes to mind. It’s tempting to compare this to the media showering Dennis Kucinich with this much attention, but in reality, that’s unfair to Kucinich — at this point in 2008, Gallup showed him with about 2% support among Democrats nationwide, while a CNN poll showed Kucinich with 3% support. But if memory serves, the Sunday shows never booked Kucinich to three Sunday shows in three weeks.
Perhaps the better recent comparison would be the media giving tons of airtime in 2008 to Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter, who were polling at or slightly above Huntsman’s level of support at this point four years ago. Of course, that didn’t happen, either — producers/bookers probably didn’t see any point, since they weren’t competitive enough to bother.
The question then becomes why Huntsman, Mr. One Percent, is getting special treatment.
