The Republican Party has invited fourteen Republican presidential candidates to its Sunshine Summit held November 13-14. Candidates who are invited, and who appear at this fund-raiser, are put on the party’s presidential primary automatically. Others must either pay a filing fee of $25,000 or complete a very difficult petition process.
The Florida Republican Party did not invite former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore, nor did it invite Mark Everson, IRS Commissioner under President Reagan. These two candidates are recognized as bona fide Republican presidential candidates by the Republican National Committee.
The Florida Republican Party says it didn’t invite Gilmore or Everson because they were not included in the Fox News debate of August 2015 nor were they included in the CNN debate of September 2015. Thus, a candidate’s ballot access rules are now being determined by the decisions of private news organizations.
Gilmore actually was in the Fox News debate in August (the “undercard” debate).
Actually, there are 15 “major” Republican candidates now (including Gilmore, but excluding Everson): Bush, Carson, Christie, Cruz, Fiorina, Gilmore, Graham, Huckabee, Jindal, Kasich, Pataki, Paul, Rubio, Santorum, and Trump.
So if they only invited 12 candidates, they must have excluded two others from the above list in addition to Gilmore.
Good point, Joshua. Actually they invited 14 but only 12 have accepted so far. George Pataki and Ben Carson haven’t accepted yet. I amended the post to change “12” to “14.”
They can still pay the RSC the fifty grand if they wanted. That’s what Carson’s doing….