Posted on 01/04/2008 9:38:26 AM PST by CounterCounterCulture
NEW YORK—ABC News is eliminating Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter and Democrats Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel from its prime-time presidential debates Saturday night because they did not meet benchmarks for their support.
The Republican debate three days before the New Hampshire primary will include Iowa caucus winner Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. It starts at 7 p.m. EDT.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Iowa has nothing to do with it. The system is set up by the parties. The republican party can change the way candidates are selected however and whenever they want. If you are a Republican and are getting screwed by this system, you are getting screwed by your own party.
Nor me. While cut and run could not even get 10% with all his so called grass root support in a caucus state ABC wants to make sure the most far left anti-Americans are heard. Cut and run probably could have gotten less than 1% and ABC would want him blabbering away about how it was our fault the terrorists attacked us.
The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.
—Vladimir Lenin
Grrrrr....
>>>What the other candidates should do is not show up and let ABC do their own debate with their so called news people..if the others had any smarts they would tell ABC to go jump off a bridge..but of course they won’t..I have not watched one of the silly debates because I get sick of all the lies I know these jokers are telling..All except Duncan Hunter that is..I check out the people myself to see what the truth is and how they voted and what they did while in office.The only one I agreed with is Duncan Hunter..So his name will be written in even if it doesn’t show up on the ballot
The other candidates would never call the media out on this. Duncan Hunter being involved in the election raises the ‘bar of integrity’.
See..that's the thing..they aren't parties any longer with the dynasties becoming intertwined by both sides playing footsies with socialism. Pubs love the Chinese/marxist money and the dems love the Chinese/marixist philosophy and they are helping each other now. The American people don't have a say any longer.
Down with the nasty dynasties.
Even many Freepers have admitted to being totally ignorant of Keyes' running even though he entered the race a mere nine days after Fred Thompson entered.
Looks like Keyes and Cox (is he still running?) were excluded as well.
If each candidate gets only 3-4 minutes of speaking time in an hour (as opposed to the host -- I won't even call them the mod-word -- who gets 20-30 minutes), it isn't worth going to or watching.
I'd rather see a series of debates with 3 or 4 candidates, selected randomly for fairness, if necessary, and have a real debate or at least a real discussion, and fewer sound bites and hand-raising polls.
I think they're including Ron Paul in the hopes he will say something outlandish.
Maybe they could give Duncan Hunter a full hour to analyze the debate like FoxNews did with Fred Thompson when Fred was still ducking the debates...
D’oh! What am I thinking? That would NEVER happen. ;-)
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080103/OPINION01/450749263/-1/OPINION01
(snip)
The ill-conceived plans by the two networks to limit the pool of candidates is inappropriate on many counts, not the least of which is thrusting the media into what should always be the uncomfortable position of “making” news rather than “covering” news.
As many of you no doubt recall, that’s a lesson we learned quite painfully back in 1980 when The Telegraph tried to arrange a one-on-one Republican debate between George Bush and Ronald Reagan in Nashua, casting aside the other five candidates who were mired in single digits at the time.
Unbeknownst to the newspaper and Bush, Reagan had invited the other candidates to participate in the debate, which prompted protests from Bush and then-Telegraph Editor Jon Breen. When the editor instructed a sound technician to cut the power to Reagan’s microphone, Reagan responded with his now-famous “I am paying for this microphone, Mr. Green! (sic).” The rest is history.
With that serving as an appropriate backdrop, we urge ABC and Fox executives to reconsider their positions and open their weekend debates to the full field of candidates.
It is the only fair thing to do.
That would guarantee that only the media-anointed "front runners" or massively self-funded candidates would have a shot.
Smallish-state early primaries/caucuses perform a valuable weeding-out process that still allows the somewhat lesser-known candidates a chance. It doesn't/shouldn't have to be Iowa and New Hampshire every time, but states in the same mold at least.
Ping
Including Paul is a mistake.
I had hoped ABC would follow the FOX News lead and cut the debate to 5 like they did with the DEms. The Democrats will get better coverage because only 5 share the spotlight and time. Paul doesn’t belong in the Republican Debate anyway since he is more Libertarian than Republican.
Or maybe Hannity will invite Hunter on his program in the midst of things
(like he did with the Iowa-no-show Giuliani last night).
Sorry... I fell into your daydreaming mode, LOL.
That is what the MSM is afraid of integrity and intelligence and Duncan Hunter has both..
Don’t throw the good out for the perfect, Thompson will be just fine! Wouldn’t it be a conservatives dream and a MSM nightmare if Thompson named Hunter as his running Mate? Then in 2016 Hunter would have gained the name recognition he is so desperately lacking now.
Then have it over the course of a month and rotate the states each time. Certain states never getting a say in the process isn’t fair.
Paul’s campaign is for what Paul will do, not what others did before him.
What has he done to secure the Texas border?
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