What are your chances of having face time with a presidential candidate?

Not great -- and diminishing rapidly.

In what is shaping up as a profound change in American politics, the living room stops and the cafe visits where candidates offer a handshake and make an appeal for support are creeping toward extinction. The onetime fixtures of the campaign trail are giving way to the Fox News studio and televised debates.

It has been five decades since television began to transform presidential races, but never before have the effects of cable television been so apparent in the early stages of a campaign. ...NYT