Cox Makes Fool of Self on "Tucker"
Carlson fails to do his homework on fringe candidate

Tucker Carlson winces during Cox MSNBC interview Thursday

GOP fringe presidential candidate John Cox appeared on the Tucker Carlson show "Tucker" Thursday and was grilled by Carlson about the damning Matt Labash expose in the Weekly Standard.

Tucker asked, “You don’t look frightening to me. You look sane. Why aren’t you beating Tom Tancredo or Duncan Hunter or Ron Paul?” Of course, he didn't answer truthfully by saying, "Well, Tucker, I've only raised $13,000 in the last 16 months of campaigning and can't seem to keep staff employeed longer than three months, because I treat them like dirt and trash them all behind their backs, because none of them are as competent as I am." But we digress.

Tucker Carlson then hit hard, asking Cox about his embarrassing fiasco at the Reagan Library debate

“As I’m reading about you, I’m thinking well this guy seems too good to be true. There must be something really eccentric about him that he isn’t getting more noticed. I couldn’t find much this is the only real eccentric thing I read about you and it’s in this brilliant profile of you by Matt Labash of the Weekly Standard. It has you during one of the debates, in California, you’re not invited to the debate, you’re shut out by the press so you stage a one-man debate wh you bsly rep to the questions, your wife hits the mute button on the TV as the other candidates respond and you respond into the camera and post it on YouTube. That’s a little odd.”

YEAH. Odd. Just like this fringe candidate, who snuck into that debate's Spin Room posing as a reporter. Nutty. Carlson then asks -

“Why did they [shut you out of the debates]? I mean it’s not just our network which sponsored that debate, it’s every network that has sponsored a debate. There’s got to be a reason.”

The reason he gave was some nonsense about the Washington DC echo chamber. But the truth of the matter is that Cox is a loon. And MSNBC knows it.

“John Cox. I keep waiting for you to say something crazy, or out of left field," notes Tucker near the end of his softball interview.

Tucker, you just haven't been listening. And you didn't do your homework for this interview.


NEWS FLASH: The latest defection from the Cox camp is his tireless media booker, a professional with a company of his own and a staff of over a dozen whom Cox fired on a whim and was reportedly BEGGING to keep the very next day, to no avail. The booker reportedly said to others that he was, "tired of taking his s**t."

The well-known Chicago-based booker got Cox interviews on CNBC, NBC, MSNBC (including the above Tucker apperance and one other 2-hour/3 appearance gig) and hundreds of radio appearances, many in major media markets like Orlando, Jacksonville, NYC, LA, Dallas and Chicago.

Of course Cox was greedy for even more attention than this, and frequently complained to all who would listen (including ON all the media programs he was on, including Tuckers') about how he was not getting on CNN and other outlets, according to the campaign staffers with whom I speak regularly.

Here's How Cox Gets Into the June 5 Debate!

Fringe presidential candidate John Cox has been shut out of the Manchester, NH GOP debate on June 5 because he has no support, has not raised any money and is not gaining any headway with the national media, which thinks he's a joke.

Here are a few helpful suggestions for Cox to finally get into a debate:

1. Sneak into the "spin room" pretending to be a reporter. (oops, tried that at the last debate. Didn't work.)
2. Wear a wig and try to get into the door posing as Mitt Romney's "other" wife.
3. Have a one-man protest at the front gate holding a large sign saying "I'm a candidate for president, dammit. Let me in!"
4. Offer to pay CNN $20,000. Hey, money talks, right? (well, except for Cox, who's spent $850,000+ of his own money and has a grand total of five Kool-Aid-drinking supporters across the nation.)
5. Stay home and film himself responding to Wolf Blitzer's questions, then splice this into the actual debate, to make it seem like he was really invited (oops, did that one already, too.)
6. Hold a mock debate across town with himself and the other 25 fringe candidates. Post it on YouTube.
7. Stand outside the debate hall and debate himself, moving from one podium to another.
8. Take out another full-page ad in the New Hampshire Union Leader with the words "I'm a legitimate candidate! Listen to me! I'm important! I'm rich! You MUST listen to me NOW!" That will surely force CNN, WMUR-TV and the Union Leader to put him on the stage.

And, if worse comes to worse, he can simply tell everyone who didn't see the debate that he was there and did a WONDERFUL job, and that Wolf Blitzer actually endorsed him in the process.

Fringe Candidate John Cox Barred from Debate

Below is an article in Saturday's "The State" (SC) newspaper discussing the failure of fringe presidential candidate John Cox to use the courts to force the SC GOP to include him in Tuesday's debate.

It's clear that he isn't a serious candidate in South Carolina (or elsewhere, actually - watch for the "money quote" in this article) and the court saw through his dangerous dog-and-pony show as he tried to prove the courts should be in the business of ordering political parties to place fringe candidates onto a stage for which THE PARTY has paid.

It's interesting that his lawyer in this case (who also happens to be his law partner in Chicago) discounted Cox's chances for victory in '08 in an interview the LA Times late last year, saying, "Realistically, he's a long shot." No kidding.

Judge denies John Cox’s bid to participate in S.C. forum
http://www.thestate.com/426/story/61872.html

Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate in Columbia is still on, and Illinois hopeful John Cox, who wants to be in the debate, is still out.

A federal judge rejected Cox’s suit to halt the debate, which has been in planning for months by Fox News and the S.C. Republican Party, ruling the sponsors had no obligation to include him.
“This is a nonpublic forum,” said Judge Joe Anderson. The debate will be telecast nationally, and Fox News and the S.C. GOP, acting as private parties, have the right to choose who will be in the debate, as long as their exclusions are not based on a candidate’s political viewpoint, Anderson said.

Ten candidates will participate in the Republican debate, scheduled for 9 p.m. Tuesday at the Koger Center.

S.C. GOP attorney Lawrence Richter argued that Cox, who also did not participate in the May 3 Republican debate in California, did not meet the criteria to be included in the South Carolina face-off.

Those criteria require debate participants to have received at least 1 percent of the vote in a recent state or national poll leading up to the May 1 registration deadline. The participants also had to pay a $25,000 filing fee to the state GOP and be a serious candidate for president.
Cox’s attorney, Christopher Oakes, argued that the debate is a public forum and that the media and the party prevent candidates like Cox from polling well by leaving their names off polling data.

Further, Oakes argued that other little-known candidates such as former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore and 10-term Texas congressman Ron Paul also hadn’t polled the requisite 1 percent in both a state and national poll, but will be allowed to debate Tuesday.

After Anderson asked the two sides to resolve the polling issue among themselves, Richter and Fox News attorney Vernon Dunbar of Greenville put up a poll contradicting Oakes’ claim.

“The record is not clear whether or not some candidates invited have met the 1 percent threshold,” Anderson said in issuing his ruling. “But it is clear that Mr. Cox has not.” [Note: This is a PRICELESS quote!]

Oakes said he and his client will discuss the ruling and decide whether to appeal Anderson’s decision Monday in the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia.

Blog Skewers Cox on MSNBC/politico.com Debate Forgery Video

The To the Right blog has posted a hilarious overview of John Cox and his latest antics:

"Cox is an Illinois businessman who is running for President. He previously lost primaries for a Senate seat and a House seat. He also lost a County Clerk race. He is now running for President because he thinks that the Republican field is lacking a conservative, despite the fact there are at least five conservatives running who have actual qualifications.

As if this weren’t pathetic enough, Cox has edited himself into the first Republican debate. His campaign took the MSNBC footage of Chris Matthews asking questions and has it cut to an awkward shot of Cox responding. As of now, his campaign has apparently pulled the video after relentless mocking by several Colorado blogs (PPH and CCP). Cox apparently thought that by editing himself into the debate, people would be fooled into thinking he was really there. We wonder how this tactic might work under different circumstances.

Cox is currently asking a federal court to force Fox News to place him in the next Republican debate because they are violating his constitutional right to free airtime on a cable news network, or something…

If this were Japan, John Cox would probably be forced to kill himself to save his family and household any more shame. Since this is America, he’ll probably end up with a radio talk show somewhere that no one listens to"