“The GOP Presidential Primary” reality show to debut on Fox News next spring

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

On a recent episode of The Daily Show, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace had an idea about how Fox News could co-opt the RNC. "We are thinking of doing — because so many of them work at Fox now as Fox News contributors. We're thinking of a 13 week series like American Idol or Dancing with the Stars: The GOP Presidential Primary," Wallace suggested.

(Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum are four Republican presidential contenders that work as contributors for Fox News. Former Fox News contributor John Kasich is the first Fox News contributor actually elected to office - as governor of Ohio).

Politco and NBC News have announced they will co-sponsor the first Republican presidential debate "during the spring of 2011," to be held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA (but of course). First 2012 Debate Coming This Spring To Reagan Library:

The organizers of next year's debate did not announce specific dates for the forum, but there's a chance it could come even earlier than the '07 debate did. (The Reagan Library was also the site of the first Republican debate of 2008, but it took place in May after the Democratic forum.)

* * *

The biggest question about the Spring debate at this point is who will attend from the many, many Republicans mentioned as possible presidential candidates in the past two years. More to the point, the biggest question is will Sarah Palin attend. Her potential run for the nomination has dominated the Republican presidential storyline since John McCain lost to Obama in 2008, and if Palin shows up to stake her claim as the tea party's candidate early on, it could change the dynamics of things quite a bit.

Sorry, no. The biggest question is what this will do to the Republican leadership in Congress. Fox News is the Republican Party. Fox News and its stable of presidential candidate contributors (will they step down like Fred Thompson did from Law & Order in 2008? Or will Fox News allow them to use their perch on the network to campaign and to solicit campaign contributions as Fox did for GOP candidates this year?) may take Republican politics in a direction that the establishment Republican leadership in Congress does not want to go — for example shutting down the government over raising the national debt ceiling next year, causing the U.S. to default on its debt. Good for Fox News ratings, a disaster for the world's economy. What's good for Fox is not good for the nation, to paraphrase Charles Wilson.

It seems to me that Republican leaders in Congress have a very narrow window of opportunity, if at all, to do anything before Fox News and its GOP presidential candidate contributors take over driving the Republican message and agenda. The latest "Republican revolution" may quickly come undone under the weight of presidential politics once "The GOP Presidential Primary" reality show debuts on Fox News.