Fair and Balanced

On this Super Thursday after Super Tuesday, the Fox News institutional support for recently departed candidate Mitt Romney stands out starkly. The opinions of the majority of the commentators of the right leaning persuasion were slanted toward Romney, which is fine within that context, but the spillover of pro-Romney sentiment into the news reporting reflected poorly on Fox's claim to the mantle of being "fair and balanced". Monday and Tuesday reporting made continued references to a "Romney surge" in Georgia and California based on Rasmussen and Zogby polling. What made this situation appear to be journalistically egregious cherry picking of poll results serving to encourage the Romney faithful is that a quick review of all the polls at RealClearPolitics would have revealed that the pollsters were all over the map in their projections. The failure of the phantom surge to materialize suggests that Fox should expand the "No-Spin Zone" to include the newsroom. Some Fox commentators rightly decry the undisguised left-leaning bias of the NBC family of stations. A little leadership by example would be appropriate.

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Exit Romney

Mitt Romney's withdrawal from the Republican race today was a manifestation of the candidate's sharp pencil mentality. It had become clear that continuing to write checks would be putting good money after bad. Ending the bloodletting now enhances his standing within the G.O.P. for future opportunities. Romney was doing well in caucuses, where his cash translated into organizational strength that was magnified in non-primary states. Other than in his three "home" states, Romney consistently finished second or worse in the more broadly representative primary elections. Given the Republican tendency, George W. Bush being the exception, to give the nomination to the perceived next one in line, the former Massachusetts governor may be at the head of that line in 2012 or 2016. The Mormon factor will remain part of the calculus, however. Evangelical voters never warmed up to Romney, and the monolithic Mormon support for their co-religionist in the Utah primary and the mountain state caucuses was striking and will not discourage the notion held by some voters that something a little strange is going on within that faith.

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