On August 6, the Democratic National Committee announced that Democratic Party presidential debates will start in October 2015. There will be one debate per month, in October 2015, November 2015, December 2015, and one in each of the first three months of 2016. See this story.
Maclean’s Magazine is sponsoring a televised debate for the leaders of four political parties in Canada. The debate is the evening of August 6. It starts at 8 a.m. eastern time and runs two hours. See this story. The four parties are the Conservative, New Democratic, Liberal, and Green Parties. Canada will have a parliamentary election in October 2015.
Level the Playing Field, which supports opening up the general election presidential debates to more candidates, has issued this press release. It points out that if the 15% polling rule were applied to the August 6, 2015 Republican presidential debate, only one candidate, Donald Trump, would qualify.
This Daily Beast article finds that at least 17 individuals have spent money to boost the 2016 presidential campaigns of both Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. Thanks to Gene Berkman for the link.
The Daily Beast has an article on whether general election presidential debates should be open to more candidates. Much of the story focuses on the comments of Leslie C. Francis, a former Executive Director of the Democratic National Committee and also a former Executive Director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Francis originally joined in with Level the Playing Field, advocating that the standards be more relaxed. But he says he broke with Level the Playing Field after it filed a lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission to force the FEC to consider changing the federal regulations on debates. Francis is quoted as saying that Level the Playing Field “blew everything up by joining forces with the Greens and the Libertarians.” Francis also says that the Commission on Presidential Debates was “possibly” going to lower the polling threshold from 15% to 10%, and he implies that that possibility is now less likely because the lawsuit was filed.
Francis also warns against “dangerous” presidential candidates qualifying for the debates if the standards are significantly relaxed.
