Republican hopeful Michele Bachmann claims the media is purposely trying to influence the GOP presidential race…and have slighted her in the process. Her campaign released an email that CBS News inadvertently sent to her campaign.
The email shows how CBS wasn’t planning to ask Bachmann as many questions as the other candidates and was planning to try and get another candidate for their online show. Read the email.
Bachmann talked about it with US News and World Report:
"There's always a suspicion of maybe a bias and I guess this just confirmed it," she said of a CBS memo before Saturday's debate, which suggested that the Minnesota Republican congresswoman would be ignored during the foreign policy chatfest.
The memo, she said, "demonstrates that the media wants to choose who our nominee will be and who the next president of the United States will be."
She added that "it's the same as the government choosing winners and losers. It shouldn't."
Bachmann said that she is frustrated with her lack of media plan and attention during the debate. She called the race for the nomination "absolutely fluid" with candidates dropping or rising weekly.
"If the media decides based on current polling how much time the candidates get [in debates]. They are trying to determine that ultimate outcome and influence it," she said.
The solution, she added, is giving candidates equal time to answer questions. And, she said, she won't protest or boycott CBS.
"Oh, no, no," she said. "The media will do what they're going to do."
Roughly 70 percent of Republican voters haven’t made up their mind yet. With that in mind, why don’t we just have debates where the same question is asked of every candidate and we can get a real sense of the differences in approach and substance?
Bachman has a point.
One other side note on Bachmann: With Cain and Perry in implosion mode and with Gingrich ready to step into the media boiling pot, Bachmann trudges along with her head down out in Iowa. She’s got organization there. Don’t underestimate her.