by Andrew Malcolm
Gee, maybe Americans are beginning to pay attention. Maybe.
The television ratings for last night's Republican debate in Florida show that 4.9 million folks watched -- 4.4 million on CNN itself and another 500,000 on CNN Headline News.
That makes it the highest rated primary debate in cable news history, surpassing the previous record-holder of only two weeks ago, the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, which drew 4 million. Reviews of the debates differ as shown here and here as eight people per party argue over what they thought they heard their opponents claim and attempt to draw divisive partisan distinctions foreign to the everyday lives of normal people.
But what seems to be happening is that the audiences have more than doubled since the early debates a few months ago. Candidates have become more practiced and argumentative. Media coverage has increased. The end of college football's regular season has left many passions pent up. And the start of balloting approaches almost as quickly as the shopping days left until Christmas dwindle.
It would be comforting to think that as American and other troops struggle in Iraq to bring stability sufficient for an infant democracy to maybe survive there, the folks living blithely back home were informing themselves on the choices they can make when the voting they've taken for granted all their lives occurs peacefully as scheduled this winter -- and most of us don't bother to participate.
But then we checked the population clock on the Census Bureau website. At last check tonight we had an American population of 303,486,444 542 748. Which means that slightly more than 98.4% of the country was not watching.
Andrew Malcolm writes for Top of the Ticket, the Los Angeles Times' political blog.
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Comments
Many of the viewers were Democrats so as we learned yesterday Democrats aren't allowed to ask questions to Republics and they aren't allowed to watch Republics debate. In other words this debate was only watched by angry old white men.
Posted by: john | November 30, 2007 9:23 AM
Being an American first and a registered democrat second, I watched the debate to see their positions on the important issues that confront us today. I was saddened to read yesterday in the swamp that being a democrat, I wasn't allowed to ask questions of these candidates that may someday lead this country. Why do the ones' who claim to be the "great" americans don't have a clue to what America is about?
Posted by: bill r. | November 30, 2007 10:11 AM
The answer is simple:
Many Americans do not have Cable TV. If you don't have Cable TV, there's no way you can watch it.
Posted by: Lou | November 30, 2007 11:17 AM
There's always a line of gapers for a spectacular accident.
Posted by: kb | November 30, 2007 11:22 AM
Nice to know that 4.4M Americans watched the repukelicans tell America none of their opponents are worth electing. I couldn't agree more.
Posted by: rncbs | November 30, 2007 5:14 PM