Breitbart has this fascinating article by Sarah Rumpf, a writer and attorney in Austin, Texas. She first presents the latest Fox poll for the Republican presidential nomination. Then she explores the consequences of these results, as applied to the Fox Debate set for August 6, 2015. As she points out, the Fox rule that the ten highest candidates (as shown by polls) qualify for the main debate is not practical. The margin of error for a poll like this, given that 16 candidates are running, doesn’t really make it possible to know which ten candidates are eligible. Thanks to Doug McNeil for the link.
By the time Fox has to pick the participants, there may be fewer than 10 left. If not, then I like the idea someone proposed in another comment thread recently. Pick a number of contestants that will appear on a platform together and divide the number of candidates registered with federal election officials by that number. That’s the number of separate debate panels. Randomly assign candidates to the several debate panels. Record all of the debates in different locations but at the same time, so you can ask everyone the same set of questions without giving those on the later panels an advantage. Put the several panels on TV during different prime time hours with equivalent potential viewing audiences. It’s reasonably fair and might make decent television.
The bast way to inform voters is to invite all candidates, and then split the time proportionately.
By limiting the choices you are limiting free speech and the ability to improve.
Are you ready for a team that invites, welcomes and nourishes interaction with all names (not just Republicans) for President of the USA?
Check out the new 9th USA Parliament’s “Presidential Debate Committee”. We’ve been evolving under pure proportional representation (PR) and our team is better than ever.
We welcome all POTUS candidates to our team, we only require that they vote for their own name (or be elected by another POTUS candidate) and meet minimal requirements in order to participate.
Nobody has it better than our team:
http://usparliament.org/pdc.php
Bob, I don’t think it is likely any Republican on the list of 16 will drop out before the August 6, 2015 debate. Why would anyone drop out before a single ballot has been cast?
One way to weed the number closer to 10 is to look to the list
that are no natural born citizens. Ted Cruz was born in Canada
on the watershed of the Elbow River, which has not been part
of Michigan Territory since circa 1818.
He received a second class naturalization as a United States
citizen in October, 1977, which was not covered under the
14th Amendment. He was not naturalized in Texas under the
Texas naturalization statute of year 1869.
That is a place to start the weeding.
Sincerely, Mark Seidenberg, Chairman,
American Independent Party of California
Yes, we need lawfully qualified candidates. To allow anything else is to contribute to the death of the Republic. There WILL BE more choices in 2016! We now have 3,000 signatures in hand for the ACP in Alaska. We will turn in at 4,500. That should be sometime in July. Alaska leads the way in Constitution Party Presidential nominee ballot access!
Richard, the first debate is sooner than I realized, and I stand corrected. All the more reason for Fox to do something sensible.