Posted on 08/03/2015 5:36:14 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The final lineup for Thursday’s debate is nearly set, as well as the five o’clock &#F8220;pregame show” with the poorly performing candidates, and Mark Everson is objecting to the fact that he doesn’t seem to be included at all. In fact, he has written a letter to Fox News to complain about it. Wait a minute… Mark who?
Yes, he’s a declared candidate for the presidency who has filed all the required paperwork. But just to be fully honest here, I do this for a living and I had to Google the guy. He declared back in March and has established the infrastructure for a campaign online. The guy isn’t a joke or fringe candidate. He’s a former IRS commissioner under George W. Bush, but his only moment of notoriety which turned up on a quick search was when Ed noted that he had visited the White House precisely once during his entire tenure at the agency. (Ah, you sort of miss the days when we didn’t have to think about the IRS so much, don’t you?)
But back to the subject at hand, Everson claims that Fox is violating their own rules for who can or can’t grab a podium Thursday night. (USA Today)
Former IRS commissioner Mark Everson, a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, will file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission on Monday alleging that he is being unfairly excluded from the first debate, he told USA TODAY.
Everson is arguing that election law requires debate organizers to set “pre-established and objective standards” for inclusion, and that Fox News has not met that requirement for Thursday’s debate in Cleveland.
“Media coverage is the oxygen of politics,” Everson said, “and I am being denied that by Fox and its intervention in the political process.” Everson launched his campaign in March and has been making regular appearances in Iowa and other states with early contests.
This ongoing story, highlighted by Everson, is something of a clash between reality and technicalities. The reality is that there are a dizzying number of people who have officially declared themselves to be candidates. You simply can’t get them all on one stage for a debate unless it’s the size of a football stadium. There had to be a cutoff, even for the kid’s table forum, and somebody wasn’t going to make it.
But Everson is also making a valid point. The idea of establishing the cutoff line based on the polls was rather sketchy to begin with, but at least it created some sort of a bar that the hopefuls had to meet. But then they removed the 1% requirement and changed it to all declared candidates whose names are consistently being offered to respondents in major national polls. Once that happened, the objection being raised by the former IRS Commissioner came into focus with a lot more credibility. The poll number requirement, while limited in viability and nearly meaningless for those down near the margin of error, at least provided some input from the voters of the nation. Once you change the definition to the names being offered by the pollsters you’ve essentially handed a knife to a dozen or so unelected polling company honchos and let them cull the field single handed. And Everson isn’t the only one complaining, by the way. Marist – one of the more respected polling firms in the nation – has stopped polling the GOP primary field until after the debates in protest of the way they are being handled.
That brings us back to that ungodly long list of declared candidates. Sure, some of them are probably cranks who are doing it on a lark but there are obviously a lot of people there who honestly want to serve and have some ideas (no matter what you may think of them) which they would like to present to the public for consideration. But as Everson said, without either a lot of money or some access to the cable news media empire, nobody will ever know.
I don’t have a solution to offer for this one, but I can at least sympathize to a degree with Everson’s point. The system is messy to an almost intolerable degree. But for now it looks like we’ll push forward with what we have.
Polls aren't supposed to choose who wins and who loses, and it's not even subtle anymore.
Another thing that's bothersome is that Trump was told he'd be kept off the stage if he didn't file his financial disclosures by a certain date. Then after he did that, extensions were given to exempt Jeb and Cruz from the requirement.
Since they all seem to to claim “Republican, why are they denizens of the party being held to accountability among the declared Pubbies?
Smoky back room...here we come!
So, FreeRepublic would find the candidate?
Will we have another media circus like 4 years ago with so many candidates on stage that the wide angle TV lens couldn’t take them all in at once?
No one at those debates was able to get more than a few minutes to speak.
That’s not a serious debate - it’s a media circus and diminishes the stature of serious candidates.
Hi grania,
A couple of weeks ago I started looking at candidates that had announced and filed. I was having a hard time remembering the seventeen. I ran across Everson’s name then, and many others. I’m surprised that the issue of inclusion hasn’t been raised before.
The full list of the 37 (38 if you include Bob Ehrlick) is at this link.
http://2016.republican-candidates.org
Gwjack
Small states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina offer plenty of opportunity for an unknown to gain support by going county to county and meeting with small groups, small town newspapers and local radio talk shows. Votes determine viable candidates, not the MSM directly.
There are more than 100 Republican candidates:
http://www.fec.gov/press/resources/2016presidential_form2pty.shtml
Here is the issue. If I filed the paperwork, should I too be in the debates? How do you have a debate, or more accurately put a Q&A, with 50, 500, or 5000 candidates, most of which might be wearing clown costumes and auditioning for the next reality show?
The RNC should set the rules providing entry into its “debates”. The onus is on each candidate to provide some level of common support indicative that they are more than a printed name on paper.
I agree that polls are not the most reliable benchmark, but how else do you winnow the wheat from the straw as it were?
According to the FEC website, 530 individuals have filed for the 2016 presidential race. That number includes all parties and write-ins.
132 are listed as Republican Party.
http://www.fec.gov/press/resources/2016presidential_form2pty.shtml
==
We’re gonna need a BIGGER debate stage!
Oy! FIFTEEN more months of this!
I’m more interested in hearing from Jindal and Perry, but with ten people on stage it’s going to be a free-for-all anyway.
Where I'm having trouble is that some candidates were given extensions to file their income statements, while others who filed everything that's required are being omitted.
I think a posting of Everson’s intention was posted here in FR’s
According to the reports I heard I believe there are 102 persons who have filed in the Republican party for POTUS.
The party should establish a rule based on demonstrating a requirement of having the organization and ability of having a following to file in the individual states. Which incldes electing delegates pledged to that particular candidate. Now all of the states have a much later filimg date for their individual primaries.
Setting up a so called debate between candidates this early in the election cycle without having at least 6 states even setting up their respective primarys and those names on their ballots is meaningless.
Had seen him a couple of times on Neil Cavuto’s show after he’d declared his candidacy.
Good enough for tar & feathering.
RE: 46th Commissioner of Internal Revenue f
I’m not going to hold this against him.
He didn’t make the laws and somebody’s got to do it.
I’ll bet was great at keeping the status quo.
I was hoping we’d get up to an even 18 candidates so they could field two baseball teams instead of messing with a debate (still need a couple of DH’s though).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.