Regarding The GOP Nominee Race

Bloggers offer their thoughts about Fox getting aggressive with Romney:

But Fox News is a really top down operation. And it plays favorites, just as much within GOP politics as between the two parties themselves. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the biggest undiscussed parts of the GOP primary process is the Murdoch primary. This is part of that.

And what does it say about Romney? It goes to a possibly pretty nasty line of attack against a newly vulnerable ‘frontrunner’ — basically that he can’t handle a fight or can’t take the heat. But in the always borderline-feral, gendered nature of campaign politics, even a bit more than that — that maybe Mitt’s not quite a man.

Nor is this out of character for Mitt. The guy doesn’t like getting questioned too hard or pressed too closely. That’s not altogether surprising given the life Mitt’s led. But he shows it. Remember the debate six weeks ago when Rick Perry finally took his geritol and managed to seriously get under Mitt’s skin on the illegal immigration issue? There’s a difficult to describe mix of surprise, put-off-edness and testiness that he exhibits in these cases.

For myself, I tend to look at these things from a regional point of view. Romney was going to be the Northern candidate. It was unclear who the Southern candidate was going to be, and after Cain and Perry both crashed, Murdoch decided to choose Gingrich. Both Murdoch and Gingrich are neo-Catholics, after all. They've shared a lot of history together.

Romney and Gingrich are probably about as evenly matched as they can be, so now it's up to the voters to decide who has the greatest national reach. If Fox is now in Gingrich's pocket, that's all the national reach he really needs to get the nomination.

Where this situation leaves ideological and social conservatives is unclear. Many seem to loathe both candidates. They seem to loathe Gingrich less, however, so who knows?