Fox News, which is increasingly becoming indistinguishable from any other corporate state media cable news channel in the post-Tucker era, has invented something called its “power rankings” — based on thin air — to prop up non-Trump, non-Ramaswamy candidates.
Related: Blue-Chip Advertisers Return to Fox News After Carlson Taken Off-Air
After launching his campaign earlier this year, Ron DeSantis was clearly the initial favorite for a desperate Rupert Murdoch, mogul proprietor of Fox News, to usurp Trump as the heir to the MAGA thone.
Via Politico, July 12, 2023:
Having underestimated the ex-president twice, Murdoch did so again, albeit indirectly, by directing Fox and his other media properties to hype the 2024 candidacy of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. His logic, as reported by various outlets, was that DeSantis was “a sanitized version of Trump” who would appeal to MAGA Republicans because of his right-wing views and to a general-election audience because of his relatively dignified and competent stewardship of the Sunshine State.
But the DeSantis switcheroo is not going to happen, however one feels about the governor. No amount of cope is going to make it happen. It’s very sad for anyone who had misplaced their hopes in DeSantis, but it’s time to face reality: barring an act of God, DeSantis is not going to be the nominee.
So they’ve begun looking elsewhere for a viable replacement as Trump remains stubbornly high in the primary polling, consistently crushing the nearest competition by over 40 points.
Related: Why Is DeSantis ‘Electability’ Argument Over Trump Not Reflected in Polls?
It seems they’re giving a new candidate a go to see if he’ll stick.
To their credit, Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino, reading dutifully from their teleprompters, acknowledge at the top of the segment that Trump is “far and away” the frontrunner, so their script writers are not entirely detached from reality.
But, beyond that, it devolves into a total s***show, starting with a stratified “power ranking” graphic divided into “frontrunner”/”contenders”/”in the conversation”/”outsiders”.
The two “contenders” are Ron DeSantis and… Tim Scott?
Fox's newest GOP primary "power rankings" pic.twitter.com/IS38Nh0ukw
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 16, 2023
They then transition to the field in Iowa for a puff piece on Scott and his “common-sense conservative policies.”
This is not a commentary on Tim Scott as a person or politician. What makes this segment so worthy of derision is that he is polling at 3% on average in national polling.
Vivek Ramaswamy is at 10% vs. Scott’s 3%; what justification does Fox News have to put the former in the lower-tier “in the conversation” strata and Scott in the “contender” strata?
It should be emphasized that there was no objective metric by which Fox News derived its “power rankings.” Instead, they were presumably left to the whim of some producer and passed off as objective.
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