Rob Kall of OpEdNews is complaining that ABC is planning to exclude Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel and Duncan Hunter from debates set for New Hampshire tonight. But none of these fine gentlemen got even 1% of the vote in Iowa; why ought they to be included?
According to Mr Kall, who cited the Associated Press, ABC set three criteria for inclusion:
- Finish fourth place or better in Iowa;
- Poll at least 5% in one of the last four major New Hampshire surveys; or
- Poll at least 5% in one of the last four major national surveys.
Those seem like reasonable and objective criteria to me, even if tey are, as Mr Kall labelled them, arbitrary.
Disney/ABC has no right to set these arbitrary criteria. If Dodd and Biden had not withdrawn from the race, ABC could have been rejecting five legitimate candidates.
Define “legitimate.” Is a candidate who draws less than 1% of the vote truly a legitimate candidate? Sorry, but I don’t think so, and if the debates serve any reasonable purpose (and I’m not certain that they really do, but enough other people seem to think so that I won’t challenge the conventional wisdom here), it seems to me that it makes sense for the debate sponsors, now that the 2007 gang-debates are out of the way and the also-rans are starting to fall, to limit the debates to those serious candidates with a serious chance of actually winning something.
If voters really are measuring the candidates by their debate performances, if the debate sponsors limit the debates to those with a partially realistic chance of winning, then the voters get more of a chance to see the real prospects individually.
This is not a freedom of speech issue; no one is saying that the candidates cannot say what they want. Rather, it is a freedom of the press issue: the media have a right to accept or reject articles for publication (and Mr Kall occasionally rejects articles for publication on his fine site), or to decide to whom they will grant air time.
If Messrs Kucinich, Gravel and Hunter wanted to be in the New Hampshire debates, then they should have done better in Iowa!
I just got this e-mail from the Kucinich campaign:
A real Democrat keeps fighting
Dear Kucinich Supporter,
We want to keep you updated with everything that is happening with the ABC situation. As you know, they have excluded Dennis from tonight’s debate.
Yesterday, the Kucinich for President Campaign filed an emergency complaint with the Federal Communications Commission claiming that the ABC television network is violating its obligation to operate in the public interest by excluding Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich from tonight’s scheduled debate in Manchester, NH. The filing points out that Kucinich is the only Democratic presidential candidate who has qualified for Federal matching funds who is being excluded by ABC. Further, the complaint charges, the televised event is not a true presidential primary debate without including all credible candidates, but instead is effectively an endorsement of the candidates selected by ABC.
Besides fighting this in court, we are fighting on the airwaves by purchasing TV and radio time.
Supporters will also be gathering outside the location of the debate in Manchester, New Hampshire tonight to hear Dennis speak. But he should be inside at the debate.
Mainstream America needs to hear about the one real Democrat – Dennis Kucinich.
We need your support to get the word out that Dennis has the platform that America needs and wants. The mainstream media won’t tell you. Did you know Dennis just won another straw poll? It was held by the Washington State Democratic Party but you will have to look hard to find it!
Please contribute $25, $50, $100, or any amount you can so we can get our message to more Americans.
Together we can overcome the media blockade.
Strength through Peace
The Kucinich Campaign
With that very e-mail, the Kucinich campaign has agreed that ABC can limit the debate to “credible candidates.” That leaves only one question: by what standards are candidates judged to be “credible?”
ABC set up three criteria, listed in the main article, and Mr Kucinich failed to meet any one of them. Why should a candidate who receibed virtually zero votes in Iowa, and is drawing less than 5% support in the New Hampshire state or national polls be considered “credible?”
Um, no he didn’t agree that ABC can limit. Mr Kucinich states that ABC ‘is violating its obligation to operate in the public interest’ by excluding candidates. The airwaves (until we go digital) are owned by the people, though you’d never believe it.
Iowa was only the first caucus. In your thinking, if you do badly in the first round, you don’t deserve any more chances? Even if what you have to offer may be what this country needs? This is not a sporting event, and it’s certainly not the playoffs. To exclude anyone so early in the race is absurd and stinks to high heaven. And why does ABC even have the right to tell us who we can and cannot see in a debate for OUR president?
Sorry folks, I disagree heartily.
Peter: Mr Kucinich’s campaign tried to separate their candidate from the other excluded candidates, saying:
It continues:
Clearly, the campaign has taken not one but two distinctions: qualifying for federal matching funds and “credible.” Mr Kall may be upset that Mike Gravel and Duncan Hunter were excluded, but the Kucinich campaign clearly is not; they are upset only that their candidate was excluded. When you wrote that:
you failed to note that his letter mentioned nothing about the other two excluded candidates; what are we to infer other than Mr Kucinich does not see it as not being in the public interest to exclude certain candidates, as long as he isn’t one of the excluded?
While I certainly understand that Mr Kucinich is serious about his candidacy, that does not make him a serious candidate. I’m afraid that, by any objective measurement, he simply is not.
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