When Marco Rubio finished third in Iowa, CNN, the Washington Post, and Vanity Fair all declared him the state’s “real winner.” When Donald Trump lapped the field in South Carolina, several pundits treated Rubio’s second-place showing as a comparable triumph. But when Rubio went 1 for 12 on Super Tuesday, some media outlets had the audacity to suggest that the Florida senator might actually be losing the Republican primary. On Wednesday, Rubio blamed this unfair negative coverage for the ultimate failure of his campaign.
“The media kind of just said, ‘Marco Rubio had a terrible night, and it looks like the strongest anti-Trump alternative is Ted Cruz,’” Rubio complained on a conference call with Minnesota supporters, the Twin Cities Pioneer Press reports. “When the media is constantly telling you, ‘So-and-so is winning and so-and-so is losing,’ it impacts voters.”
Rubio has a point. If the media had simply refused to disclose the results of Super Tuesday’s primary elections — or, fairer still, fabricated more balanced returns — he probably would have had a better chance of defeating Trump in his home state on Tuesday. In a media environment where cable networks feel free to irresponsibly report who actually wins and loses elections, of course Rubio had no chance. Kim Jong-un doesn’t know how good he has it.
