What should the standard be for inclusion in a TV debate?

Bill McBlueState

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Sat Jan-12-08 03:33 PM
Original message

What should the standard be for inclusion in a TV debate?

Clearly there has to be some standard to determine who gets to be in a televised debate. If I had a press conference, announced I was running for the Democratic nomination, and got my name on the ballot in a few states, would I have a good case for being in the debates? Heck, in New Hampshire, there were 21 Dems on the ballot. Should they all have been invited to a nationally televised debate?

Or is there some notability or polling threshold one should have to reach?

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Peggy Day

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Sat Jan-12-08 03:35 PM
Response to Original message

1. how about listed on the ballot and hasn't dropped out yet nt

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Bill McBlueState

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Sat Jan-12-08 03:39 PM
Response to Reply #1

5. that makes sense on a state-by-state basis

But different states have different ballots. New Hampshire, like I mentioned in the OP, seems to let anyone on: there were 21 Democrats on the ballot. A debate with more than a dozen participants would hardly be a debate at all.

Maybe it would make sense to invite everyone who is on the ballot in at least X states. But what should X be?

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rocknrush

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Sat Jan-12-08 03:36 PM
Response to Original message

2. One standard would be

to have a bigger table & more chairs.

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MadBadger

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Sat Jan-12-08 03:37 PM
Response to Original message

3. Polling above 5% in the state where the debate is being held.

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napi21

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Sat Jan-12-08 03:37 PM
Response to Original message

4. I was listening to cspan this morning and the speaker was the

head of a group something like the presidential debate committee. He stated that THEIR criteria was that a candidate must have 15% avg. in the polls. He said their group uses Gallup to gather the top 6 polls in the country and then take the average of them all. Obviously that isn't what all polls do, but it sounded reasonable to me.

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Bill McBlueState

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Sat Jan-12-08 03:43 PM
Response to Reply #4

6. the problem with this approach

The problem with this approach is that it's a chicken-and-egg situation. For example, if someone's at 14%, a strong debate performance might be exactly what he or she needs to get to 20%. This method might tend to reward candidates who are already popular and penalize those who could make gains if they were only given an opportunity.

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napi21

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Sat Jan-12-08 05:00 PM
Response to Reply #6

8. I think he was talking about Presidential Debates, not Party Debates

because he said "Yes, I've already been sued by Perot, Nader, and several others!

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Occam Bandage

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Sat Jan-12-08 03:45 PM
Response to Original message

7. For state debate, polling above 5% in that state. For a national debate,

polling above 5% nationwide.

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THUNDER HANDS

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Sat Jan-12-08 05:02 PM
Response to Original message

9. should be polling above 6% in one or more states

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