“Because I’m not doing anything at nine o’clock tonight.”
When Santorum was asked the loaded question about whether he’d go to the event Trump was hosting, he finished his point with that line. He was angry, and thinks voters should be too. So, what has him so upset?
He thinks the media is manipulating the voting process. The debates are broken into two parts. The “Big Event” and “The Undercard”. “The Undercard” both as a term and a practice, he argues, is inherently biased, and manipulates both public opinion and the eventual outcome of the primaries.
How does he substantiate this belief? Partly by reminding us how the main event and its participants get loads of free press. Names and faces of the insiders are endlessly promoted, while the undercard group is shut out. This is chronic.
Meanwhile, the “other guy” (who Santorum mentioned only indirectly, as “an Entertainer”) — who himself made headlines by snubbing, rather than participating in the event — got basically wall-to-wall media coverage. Because, clearly, he needs help financing his campaign advertising, impoverished soul that he is.
The podium that might still have been used remained offstage and empty, with nobody bumped up to First Class to fill it.
It isn’t just Santorum that was relegated to the so-called “undercard”. It was all the rest as well.
Santorum backs up his claims of bias in his own words:
“… that is the chronic situation. In fact, they put a poll up from Wall Street Journal-NBC News, they listed the candidates and they failed to mention — I wasn’t listed I got zero. Why? Because the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll never includes my name on the list. This is what the media has been doing over the past year in trying to segregate and take Iowans out of the process. What Iowans deserve is to hear from every candidate on an equal footing. Had they applied the same rules four years ago I would have been in the undercard debate. The guy who won the Iowa caucuses would have been in the undercard debate, not talked about. We have been talking about an entertainer that may have been trying to run. Ladies and gentlemen, you have a chance on Monday to put the record straight about who you want, not who will entertain you but who will fight for what you believe in. I hope you do it.”
Rick Santorum didn’t just stop there, he also ripped Fox News to shreds in the spin room after the undercard debate:
DES MOINES, Iowa — Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, the winner of the 2012 GOP caucuses, told Breitbart News in the spin room after the undercard Fox News Channel debate that he’s pleased the Fox News Channel is being exposed for being biased in favor of establishment GOP candidates for president.
Specifically, Santorum ripped not just Megyn Kelly and Bill O’Reilly for refusing to put him on their shows even once since he launched his 2016 presidential campaign in May.
…
“I wish all the networks would receive the same criticism that Fox is getting right now, but look, you’re looking at a guy who announced on the last week of May and has not been invited back on Fox and Friends, has never had an interview on Megyn Kelly, has never had an interview with Bill O’Reilly,” Santorum said. “They won’t put me on the show. And this is a guy that won the Iowa caucuses four years ago, and when you look at their biggest primetime shows, we haven’t had access to their shows.”
Santorum did thank Martha MacCallum and Bill Hemmer, Greta Van Susteren, and Sean Hannity for having him on their shows. But he said the only reason that happens is because each of them are “friends,” and he wouldn’t even be on those programs if it were up to the network bosses.
“Now, I thank Bill and Martha, I’ve been on their show and Greta and Sean are friends—but they’re friends, and that’s why I’m on their show, I’m their friends,” Santorum said. “We’ve known each other for years but it is a different story by speaking out.”
Then Santorum went straight after the Fox News Channel’s chief executive, Roger Ailes, saying that Ailes “will have a field day” by further attacking him by drowning his voice out. Santorum said:
Roger Ailes will have a field day by making sure that I don’t have access to the shows in the future. You know what, at some point you sort of have to speak out and realize that the game is being stacked. And look, let me explain why the game is being stacked. The game is being stacked because Fox is a business. Fox is a business. So I’m not blaming Roger Ailes and I hope he listens to the rest of this quote and not just what I said in naming him. But Fox is a business and their business is to get eyeballs for their shows. And what’s driving eyeballs for everybody’s shows, as you know, is a certain candidate in this race. So they’re in a business to get advertising dollars and make a profit. Touche. The reality is by doing that they’re not doing what most people think they’re doing which is giving everyone the opportunity to make their case to the American public. So if we just cut the charade that that’s what it is about and be honest and say look we’re doing this because you folks tune in when we do it, then I think we’d actually have a much more honest understanding of what’s going on out there.
Read more: Breitbart
