Roger Chesley, the political columnist for the Virginian-Pilot newspaper, here criticizes the Virginia Bar Association for inviting only the Democratic and Republican nominees for U.S. Senate this year. The Virginian-Pilot is the largest newspaper in Virginia, and is published in Norfolk.
I doubt the criteria used by the Virginia Bar satisfy the FECA’s “objective criteria” requirement for debates. Somebody needs to file a complaint with the FEC!
http://www.dailypress.com/news/politics/shad-plank-blog/dp-vba-libertarian-sarvis-not-invited-to-senate-debate-20140627,0,3828293.post?track=rss
The criteria are rather vague, but unfortunately at this point there has only been one poll on this race in the last two or three months, and only one poll to include Sarvis at all (going even further back). So the criteria kind of have to be vague. Granted, they’re overly restrictive at this stage in the race – how are you supposed to garner support when you’re spending all your resources on ballot access – but I’m not sure how much the FEC could get involved.
FEC is really bad about enforcing its objectivity standard. I don’t think it ever has. I was kind of being facetious. But still, FEC never will if people don’t complain.