A Numbers Racket

I took last night's CNN republican debate transcript and crunched some numbers. I pulled it into Word to get aggregate totals using the "Find" utility with "Match Case"--as candidates speaking were presented in upper case. Here's what it showed:

ROMNEY: 49
MCCAIN: 45
HUCKABEE: 16
PAUL: 9

A bit of a disparity there, don't you think? And I couldn't help but notice Jim VandeHei from Politico initiated only one question to Dr. Paul. Janet Hook from the LA Times didn't even acknowledge he existed.

Here's something else that bothered me:

PAUL: ...But I would like to take one minute, since I didn't get a chance to answer this discussion on conservative versus liberal.

COOPER: We're going to have -- I promise you we're going to have -- you're going to have another opportunity to do that. I promise you, coming up in like two minutes or two questions.

Go ahead and find where Anderson kept his promise.

We've talked before--several times--about how the "Authorized Journalists" are marginalizing Dr. Paul by omission. He needs to do a better job of not allowing that to happen, particularly in debates where he has some immediate control--by gently but firmly protesting being ignored, and insisting on equal time for all candidates.

I think if, during commercial break, he and Huckabee decided to walk out in protest when the cameras came back on, they'd not only have their own impromptu mini-debate/news conference with plenty of reporters, but it would be today's major headline, completely overshadowing the meaningless posturing, pandering and prevarication that went on last night between establishment darlings Romney and McCain. That's a guerilla move--millions of dollars worth of free publicity that would also set them apart in a way, I believe, that many Americans who are sick of the same old BS and manipulation would admire.