rick santorum s political career will be ending soon. he will go to the republican convention next year not as a candidate but as a fox news contributor again. santorum has traveled all of iowa, and he s still gaining no traction. there s a reason for that. then of course, santorum finished in a virtual tie in the iowa caucuses. how could news outlets make this mistake again and fail to scrutinize santorum s record in the process? mitt romney faces skeptical questioning despite winning iowa because his margin was a measly eight votes. what does did say about your candidacy that you actually won fewer votes than but in 2008, and you fought rick santorum to a draw? perhaps the press is just trying to keep this race alive? plus, we ll talk to the political director of the dominant tv station, wmur, about covering the nation s first primary as a local story. i m howard kurtz and this is the new hampshire edition of reliable sources. the media narrative here in new
merribeat narrowly the person who spent the most amount of time in iowa. he lost the points that. totally lost the spin. look at ad spending. the only campaign combined with super pac that spent more than romney was rick perry. i mean, romney and his super pac spent big time in iowa. you got to have a real couch potato to sit in front of your tv in des moines or any place else in iowa and take in those ads. it was inescapable. it was wall-to-wall ad after ad. i can t believe the public did not tune out. okay. so we re two days away now from the first primary here. and romney s above 40%. i think it s safe to say he s going to win some victory. will the press now discount a romney victory because it is expected, and focus much of the attention on who finished second or third? yes, the race is for who s going to place, you know, the race is for silver. already you have the democrats saying it was chairman debbie wasserman shultz saying if he doesn t win by 50% i think t