I knew I wasn't going to be able to watch the debate yesterday, so I recorded it. While watching it today, I decided to track how much talk time each candidate got, plus the number of questions. If anyone is interested, here are my results:
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheEvilDetector
Quick re-format...
Talk Time
Code:
Candidate mm:ss mm:ss% Q
Giuliani 14:43 16.71 18
Thompson 14:00 15.90 18
Romney 12:24 14.08 13
McCain 11:45 13.34 14
Huckabee 8:28 9.62 8
Brownback 8:03 9.14 11
Tancredo 7:05 8.04 8
Hunter 5:51 6.54 7
Paul 5:44 6.51 7
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I'm sure none of these numbers are a surprise to anyone, but it's interesting to see exactly how much of a discrepancy exists in CNBC/MSNBC's treatment of the candidates in the debate. There is absolutely no debate about whether or not all the candidates were given an equal opportunity to present their views to the public. Unless your name is Guiliani, Romney, McCain or Thompson, you aren't given a chance to actually make your argument to the American people.
Please feel free to use these numbers to support your position when arguing that the MSM ignores and discriminates against Ron Paul and other "second tier" candidates. For clarity, there were instances where Ron Paul and other candidates did not use their full allotment of time on certain questions, but this would not significantly affect the time listed here. (For example, when 30 seconds were given to respond to a question, a candidate may only use 25. I only counted the 25 seconds used, not the 30 seconds given. This seemed appropriate since there were far more instances of candidates going well beyond their given time.)
Sorry for the formatting; will try to make it easier to read when I get the chance.
Thanks to TheEvilDetector for the easier to read format.