The Virginia gubernatorial debate being held on October 24 is jointly sponsored by WDBJ7, and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (known as Virginia Tech).
WDBJ7 is sending an automated response to people who advocate that the debate include Rob Sarvis. It says, “Thank you for your interest in the debate. The guidelines for the debate were negotiated by the two major party candidates. WDBJ7 originally recommended that the door be opened and a reasonable threshold be set for Mr. Sarvis to participate. I believe no other debate organizers had even given him that opportunity. The particulars of the language were negotiated by the major party candidates. Once the agreements were signed, WDBJ7 was bound by the rules or risked losing the opportunity for the voters of Virginia to hear any of the office seekers debate the issues.”
SDBJ7 has a story on Sarvis’ reaction to being excluded from the only remaining debate.
The webpage of Virginia Tech does not appear to discuss the October 2013 debate. Virginia Tech has hosted general election debates in the past, including the US Senate debate of 2012, in which only the two major parties appeared on the ballot.
UPDATE: here is an account of the major party gubernatorial debate held October 10.
It should be equal access either way. Either ALL of the candidates get a chance to debate, or none of them do. The cowards apparently never thought of turning the tables on the major party candidates.
Ah, well, the longer the shutdown goes on, the more voters will dislike both ruling parties, and the stronger Sarvis’ support becomes regardless. I’m fairly certain at this point that he’ll get 10% of the vote.
This is very common. In Ohio, for example, the news media simply negotiate with the major parties and cut their deals. No way the minors can participate. The news organizations and the majors should both be held accountable under the FECA.
Would either or both of the major-party candidates refuse to participate in the last scheduled debate if the organizers decided to invite the Libertarian candidate?
The Republican and the Democrat are caught in a sort of prisoners’ dilemma. If one chooses to debate the Libertarian and the other does not, he risks looking churlish (and foolish), with the other looking confident and courteous.
If both choose not to debate, they both risk being criticized for failing to present themselves to the voters in the last of three televised debates (the first of which was early on a Saturday morning in August).
The TV station should have challenged the two major-party candidates to participate even with the Libertarian in the mix. The worst that could happen is the debate gets canceled.
Right, they negotiated it with the two major party candidates, both of whom are so bad that they don’t want voters to know that there’s a third choice on the ballot.
What’s remarkable is that Sarvis is polling so well, despite an almost complete media blackout, and a total exclusion from the debates.