FiveThirtyEight and has a good article on this topic.
FiveThirtyEight Article
Posted on 06/10/2015 11:45:50 AM PDT by GIdget2004
A group of prominent New Hampshire Republicans has written an open letter to Fox News and the Republican National Committee, urging them to reconsider the criteria for the Republican primary debates on the network.
The letter, signed by 56 Republicans, including former governors, members of Congress, state legislators and delegates, warns that the current criteria threatens to “undermine the very nature of our process and the valuable service that states like New Hampshire provide to voters across the country."
Under the criteria for the first Fox debate on Aug. 6 in Cleveland, candidates must place "in the top 10 of an average of the five most recent national polls, as recognized by Fox News leading up to August 4th at 5 PM/ET," in order to get a spot on stage. More than 10 candidates could be on stage, depending on ties in polling.
But the group of New Hampshire Republicans say that the criteria is “unnecessarily narrow” for the first debate, and risks leaving out “potentially viable candidates based on unreliable national polling.”
“Any metric used to select the top ten candidates based on public polling this early in the nominating process would make it impossible to ensure fairness. Indeed, the margin between the tenth candidate and those that don’t qualify will almost certainly be statistically insignificant,” the letter states.
The letter is signed by some prominent Republicans in the state, including James and Chris Sununu, Andy Sanborn Charlie Arlinghaus, Rich Ashooh, Fergus Cullen, Marilinda Garcia, Dan Innis, Ovid Lamontagne, Doug Scamman and Stella Scamman.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
I agree
Here’s an idea — DON’T have “debates”
Isn’t NH in the tank for Jebbie?
I’d rather see the top candidates from polling (Cruz, Walker, Jeb Bush, and whatever others form the top 3, 5, 7, whatever) plus wildcards. Fill out the ten on the podium with a preliminary, second-tier debate. In that preliminary debate, have an honest audience (all republicans in a town, for example) vote for the best candidates, based on their performance on stage and some other information, and the winners get wildcard slots in the top-tier debate regardless of their polling numbers.
Less control means less control by the MSM and political establishments.
It is way to early to have any debates.
Fox needs to stand down. They have pushing the 2016 election since the day after the 2014 election.
And that stupid chip casino by Bret Baier and his panel on Fridays is stupefyingly dumb.
Even 10 is TOO MANY...
No way to get to any real issues, it’s just a 90 minute beauty contest.
Either create an hour long weekly show featuring three candidates, or you take Greta, Bill, Megyn and Sean and they take one two candidates per show, give each one a five minute block to take a question and rebut a question.
Carly Fiorina’s poll #’s will spike once everyone has a chance to listen to her. I would give my right arm to see her in a debate will the hildabeast.
Yes, John Sununu, the elder, was Governor of NH and Chief of staff for Bush 41...NH tends to support the Bushes....
Easy fix: Ask Karl Rove and John Boehner what they think, and go the other way.
Even with 10 candidates on stage, they are not going to get much face time:
90 minute broadcast,
1 minute opening and
1 minute closing statements,
20 seconds for moderator(s) to ask each their editorialized questions.
Each candidate will get maybe 4 to 6 minutes of total response time.
A “news” outlet making the call is EXACTLY what’s wrong with our system.
They NEED all of the clowns in the clown car on stage at once in order to dilute Cruz and Walker face time and to provide interference for JEB.
Tell them to pound sand.
There are actually 93 declared Republican candidates, with another potential 6.
http://www.politics1.com/p2016.htm
85 of em won’t be able to draw an audience of more than a half dozen.
Oh, that would be a good metric. Sell tickets. What’s the auditorium size? 1000? Maybe limit the debate to 10 candidates. Whichever candidates can sell 100 tickets the fastest get a slot on the stage.
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