Hours after Mitt Romney announced that he would release two year's worth of tax documents, he appeared on Mike Huckabee's Fox News show. Despite the fact that the taxes Romney pays -- and his past efforts to avoid revealing details about them -- had become a major issue in the presidential race, Huckabee seemed largely uninterested. Huckabee first downplayed the importance of such disclosure and then exclaimed that most people wouldn't understand it anyway. What's the big deal, right?
HUCKABEE: I don't think that it's all that great to see the tax returns because most people don't understand their own taxes -- much less yours. You're going to release them anyway -- obviously, with a lot of pressure. But, I mean, you've already done the financial disclosure. Is there anything that's going to be on those tax returns that's all that different than what you've already released in the way of what most people don't understand is a very thorough disclosure from the candidate forms.
So who's winning the Fox Primary? Each week at Media Matters, we watch the interviews, crunch the numbers, and tell you what Fox is up to in the presidential campaign.
Last Week's Results
Total time: 3 hours and 2 minutes; Total appearances: 25
Most Total Airtime on Fox: Rick Santorum (1 hour and 10 minutes)
Most Total Appearances: Rick Santorum (10 appearances)
Fox Show with the Most Total Candidate Airtime: Hannity (47 minutes)
Fox Show with the Most Candidate Appearances: Fox and Friends (6 appearances)
Longest Candidate Interview: Fox News Sunday and Hannity (16 minutes with Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, respectively)
Softball Question(s) of the Week: During the January 18 edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy asked Rick Perry:
DOOCY: So another Saturday -- another debate on Saturday. We had one two nights ago. Are you exhausted from debating?
Bonus points: Perry responded, “No, and actually, the debate's on Thursday.”
(A table of the January 16 - 22, 2012 data is available here.)
The Numbers Since June 1, 2011
Total time: 89 hours and 40 minutes; Total appearances: 716
Most Total Airtime on Fox since June 1: Newt Gingrich (12 hours and 14 minutes)
Most Total Appearances since June 1: Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum (85 appearances each)
Fox Show with the Most Total Candidate Airtime Since June 1: Hannity (14 hours and 48 minutes)
Fox Show with the Most Candidate Appearances since June 1: On the Record with Greta Van Susteren (106 appearances)
Longest Candidate Interview since June 1: Stossel (40 minutes with Gary Johnson)
(A table of all the data since June 1, 2011 is available here.)
Previous Fox Primary Reports
June 1 - 5, 2011
June 6 - 12, 2011
June 13 - 19, 2011
June 20 - 26, 2011
June 27 - July 4, 2011
July 5 - 10, 2011
July 11 - 17, 2011
July 18 - 24, 2011
July 25 - 31, 2011
August 1 - 7, 2011
August 8 - 14, 2011
August 15 - 21, 2011
August 22 - 28, 2011
August 29 - September 4, 2011
September 5 - 11, 2011
September 12 - 18, 2011
September 19 - 25, 2011
September 26 - October 2, 2011
October 3 - 9, 2011
October 10 - 16, 2011
October 17 - 23, 2011
October 24 - 30, 2011
October 31 - November 6, 2011
November 7 - 13, 2011
November 14 - 20, 2011
November 21 - 27, 2011
November 28 - December 4, 2011
December 5 - 11, 2011
December 12 - 18, 2011
December 19, 2011 - January 1, 2012
January 2 - 8, 2012
January 9 - 15, 2012
Methodology
Media Matters searched the Nexis database for all guest appearances on Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, and Fox News Sunday for the 10 declared and potential presidential candidates in question: Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Gary Johnson, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Buddy Roemer, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum.
For programs where a transcript was unavailable, Media Matters reviewed the raw video.
Changes to the reports
Media Matters added McCotter to the data beginning on June 20, 2011 and Roemer beginning on July 21, 2011. We stopped including McCotter on September 22, 2011; he dropped out of the race that day.
We stopped including Pawlenty and Trump in the data beginning on August 14, 2011; Pawlenty dropped out of the race on that date. And while Trump stated that he would no longer seek the Republican nomination but may instead run as an independent (on June 1, 2011, the beginning of this report), we decided to drop him from the data on this date.
We stopped including Bolton in the data beginning on September 6, 2011; Bolton decided not to run on this date.
We stopped including Palin in the data after her decision not to run was made on October 5, 2011.
We stopped including Giuliani in the data after he announced on October 11, 2011 that he would not run.
We stopped including Cain in the data when he suspended his campaign on December 3, 2011.
We stopped including Johnson in the data on December 28, 2011; Johnson announced he would seek the Libertarian Party's nomination.
We stopped including Bachmann in the data when she suspended her campaign on January 4, 2012.
We stopped including Huntsman in the data when he dropped out of the race on January 16, 2012.
We stopped including Perry in the data when he dropped out of the race on January 19, 2012.