At last night’s Fox News-Washington Examiner Republican presidential debate in Ames, Iowa, candidate Rick Santorum complained that he was shortchanged in the number of questions and airtime allotted to him. Addressing the audience, Santorum said, “I told you when I traveled around Iowa, you would see me in your city, in your hometown, but you probably wouldn’t see much of me on television. So it’s totally true tonight.”
I was part of the panel questioning the candidates Thursday night, and I can say that in preparations for the debate, the producers took a lot of care to make sure each candidate had an equal chance to speak. They’re so careful about it that in post-debate analysis they track every second each candidate talked. And here are the results for the Ames debate:
| Mitt Romney | 10.1 minutes |
| Michele Bachmann | 10.0 minutes |
| Ron Paul | 9.7 minutes |
| Tim Pawlenty | 9.4 minutes |
| Rick Santorum | 9.2 minutes |
| Newt Gingrich | 8.7 minutes |
| Herman Cain | 7.7 minutes |
| Jon Huntsman | 7.2 minutes |
The top five candidates in terms of air time — Romney, Bachmann, Paul, Pawlenty, and, yes, Santorum — were all within one minute of each other over the course of a two-hour debate. Newt Gingrich got a bit less, and Herman Cain and Jon Huntsman did lag a bit. But part of that was due to their own choice to give shorter answers. Mitt Romney was asked 12 questions; Herman Cain was asked 11. Some of the difference in air times had to do with the relative aggressiveness of the candidates.
The bottom line is that Fox News and the Washington Examiner were careful to give each candidate an equal shot. And by and large, they succeeded.
