LOL Fox News Forgot To Screen Out Libs In 'Ohio Voters Panel.' Bet They Don't Do That Again!

How'd that happen?

On Tuesday night, Fox News held a "town hall" — not a debate — featuring Ohio US Senate candidates Tim Ryan (D) and JD Vance (R). The two appeared in separate onstage interviews; Vance mostly got softball questions and Ryan was booed by the Fox-friendly audience when he stated the simple fact that January 6 rioters killed a Capitol Police officer. (In MAGAworld, Brian Sicknick simply had two strokes the next day for no reason at all.) Vance said he supported Sen. Lindsey Graham's national abortion ban, and Ryan got applause for saying "I think we go back to Roe v. Wade. "

Both candidates condemned the attack on Paul Pelosi, but Vance magicked away the attacker's political motives by pointing out the guy was an "illegal alien in our country and shouldn't have been here in the first place." (The attacker came to the US from Canada in 2008; he didn't need a visa but should have returned after six months.) We didn't watch the whole town hall, and darned if it's on the YouTubes, so the heck with it. The polling for the Senate race has Vance and Ryan in a virtual tie. 

Before the town hall, Fox News ran a brief segment featuring a panel of Ohio voters who were selected from the town hall audience. Fox hosts Martha MacCallum and Brett Baier asked the panelists to raise their hands if they thought America "is headed in the wrong direction" (most did, although apparently for different reasons, as we'll see), and whether inflation and crime were the biggest issues in the election. Most raised their hands for inflation, but only about half raised their hands when asked if they felt "less safe" today than four years ago.

The panelists' opinions were surprisingly diverse for a group of people appearing on Fox News, which was a pleasant surprise. There were definitely some typical Fox viewers in the bunch, like the woman who explained that nobody wants to work after the pandemic because the government gave everyone all that free money (which apparently lasted forever for the imaginary layabouts she was thinking of).

Another guy explained that we absolutely need to drill for more oil and natural gas because "the Obiden administration" pursued "the controlled destruction of large parts of our economy." He explained it started with shutdowns for COVID that actually happened under the president who was, technically, neither Obama nor Biden, but also all the orders Joe Biden gave his first day in office to curtail US oil production just a little bit. (Spoiler:  Joe Biden did not make oil go away by any stretch of the imagination, and environmentalists have complained about all the new leasing the administration has allowed on public land.)

But some of the panelists were simply not Fox News material, like the bearded fellow in the jacket and turtleneck, who sounded almost like a Tim Ryan volunteer. He said Ryan has always fought for Ohioans, for good-paying union jobs, and that Vance was a climate-crisis-denying nogoodnik. He said Vance had returned to Ohio only to run for the Senate, after spending much of his adult life in California, "working with millionaires, not working for the people of Ohio" ( Fact check:   billionaires ). Further, turtleneck guy said, Ryan's support of the Inflation Reduction Act will mean good union jobs for Ohioans in green energy manufacturing, but Vance wouldn't help at all. Yay, turtleneck guy!

The really non-Fox News-y answers started coming when they were asked about abortion; happily, we have that part of the discussion on this Twitter video from Daily Beast media reporter Justin Baragona. Baier started off with a generic question about how significant an issue abortion is for Ohio voters. Ohio State student "Sophie" said it was among the top issues behind her vote and a matter of basic freedom for women, even though she thinks she may never need an abortion herself.

“Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum to Ohio voters: "Right now in Ohio, abortion is legal up to 22 weeks. So does anyone think that that will change?" Needless to say, some panelists are concerned that will change, likely because the 6-week ban is only on hold by a judge.”

— Justin Baragona (@Justin Baragona) 1667332788 

MacCallum jumped in with a very Fox Newsish partial truth, noting that "right now" abortion is legal up to 22 weeks of pregnancy, and asked, "Does anyone think that will change?" As Baragona notes in the tweet, it certainly might, since the state Lege also passed a six-week ban that's temporarily on hold while a legal challenge goes forward. One of the guys on the panel got a little tongue-tied, but explained that the ban could go into effect whenever there's a decision in the case. Then a woman in the back added that Vance has said he doesn't support reproductive rights, while Ryan does; she said she's pretty sure Ohio is on track to ban abortion completely.

One Mr. Man jumped in to say he didn't think abortion is even relevant to a US Senate election anyway, since Dobbs supposedly leaves the decision "up to the states," although of course that's bunk if Republicans take back the White House and the Senate passes Graham's national ban.

Mr. Man's comments riled up a woman sitting in front of him, who was pretty pissed off at the very idea that politicians think they have any say in how women live their lives:

I'm a woman living in Ohio, and the suppression of women and our bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom has large implications in our state. Economically, socially, we need women's health care.

She seemed to get a little derailed while talking about how these laws would prevent women from availing themselves of medical knowledge that would "save people and babies"; not sure where she was going with that — possibly just that if women die because abortion care isn't available, they can't care for children they already have.

In any case, MacCallum cut her off since it was time for a commercial, or maybe because there'd been entirely too much talk that wasn't sufficiently supportive of Vance, the Fox News candidate, and then it was over.

So hooray for the producers not screening that voter panel — we actually ended up with a pretty good range of opinions in spite of the program being on Fox News.

[ Fox News / WCKY-TV / Newsweek ]

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