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If there’s anything the MSM likes more than an abduction ***

[[*** unless the story has to do with three U.S. soldiers taken hostage by al Qaeda or one BBC correspondent kidnapped by al Qaeda-affiliated Palestinian thugs]]

it’s a dog fight.

(photo from AP: GOP presidential candidates during the first debate)

And tonight we’ll be getting Round Two:

 As the Republican presidential candidates arrive in Columbia, S.C., for a primary debate to be broadcast on FOX News, polls in the First-in-the-South presidential primary state show Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in a dog fight for first place.

The latest survey by respected Republican pollster Whit Ayers, who is unaligned with any campaign, shows McCain at 25 percent, leading Giuliani by 5 points. The poll has a 4.4 percent margin of error. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is in fifth place at 8 percent and behind two men — former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich — who aren’t even in the race.

If you’d asked me ten years ago what I’d think about dozens of candidates for each of the two parties running for office and campaigning hard for almost two years, I would have laughed in your face. I would have derided it as a circus, totally undignified, and utterly beneath contempt—sorta the way the outraged leftosphere thinks about politics and the MSM now. (Yes, I was still that idealistic ten years ago. Hard to believe, I know.)

Come 2007, however, and I am older and wiser. Now, to the horror of my friends, colleagues, family, and cohort, I applaud and endorse the MSM’s horserace (or dog fight) coverage. +++ Pace Jon Stewart, this stuff is not hurting America. It grabs the attention of Americans everywhere, and thus works to America’s advantage as the men (and one woman) vying for the right to be our president and commander in chief are roasted and grilled by the “journalists” of the MSM, only to be chewed up and spit out by the talking heads and the blogging heads. For better or for worse, it’s the only national conversation we’re having about politics. And having a national conversation—any kind of national conversation—about politics is a good thing, to quote another Stewart, so here’s to infotainment. It rules!

By the way: This horserace stuff is also reaching some of the members of the hardest-to-reach demographic—young males. How do I know? Anecdotal evidence, dear Watson. I am acquainted with a bunch of young males in the demo who are interested in social justice and all that but are not at all political, and they love the debates. They enjoy horserace-type coverage of politics. It engages their interest—(what a concept! It was, of course, JFK Jr.’s concept for his magazine George, in which he was trying to use Hollywood stars and other celebrities to focus the attention of his apolitical cohort on the greatest show on earth [politics]. Young Kennedy was way ahead of the curve—ten years too early. And then he died before he could be proved right. Oh well.)

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+++ It is such a dog fight, that Fox refuses to allow CSPAN to carry the debate.