Mike Gravel left out of the CNN debates, media screams silence!

Fresh on the heels of MSNBC's exclusion of Senator Mike Gravel from last week's Philadelphia debate, we now hear that CNN has cut the Senator from its November 15 debate in Las Vegas. Like MSNBC, CNN's justification comes down to one ugly factor: MONEY.

CNN says Mike must meet three criteria:

* Form a federal exploratory committee and officially declare his candidacy. (He did.)

* Poll at 1% or above. (He does.)

* Raise at least $1 million in individual contributions since January 1, 2007. (He has not.)

Once again, MONEY decides who gets to participate in America's political debates.

He makes a lot of sense and is much calmer in person.

The Santa Clara case is the one cited most often as the origin of corporate personhood. Buckley simply solidified it further.

n/t

CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. Nov. 2-4, 2007. N=467 registered voters nationwide who are Democrats or independents who lean to the Democratic Party. MoE ± 4.5.

.

"Please tell me which of the following people you would be most likely to support for the Democratic nomination for president in the year 2008 . . . ." Names rotated. For 10/07 and earlier, includes second choices of Gore supporters.

.

11/2-4/07 10/12-14/07 9/7-9/07 8/6-8/07
% % % %
Hillary Clinton
44
51
46
44

Barack Obama
25
21
23
24

John Edwards
14
15
16
16

Bill Richardson
4
4
5
5

Joe Biden
3
1
2
3

Christopher Dodd
2
1
-
-

Dennis Kucinich
2
1
3
2

Mike Gravel
1
1
1
-

Unsure
5
7
3
6

telling truths the media cannot control with live tv

He's not a serious candidate. I agree that money is a crap criterion. By if you just use the first two criteria, you'd have to invite Stephen Colbert to any South Carolina debates.

Gravel had a point to make. He made it. He quit adding anything substantive to the debate months ago.

only people who already have power and money should be able to run!
wow, why didnt i think of that...


live in nazi germany lately?

questions and then completely ignore him on their broadcasts. Think of how many congressmen and senators there are out there and most have no clue who they are. He is just another candidate that has been blacked out and will never be any higher in the polls because he doesn't have the national advertising the other candidates get from the MSM. In the 2004 elections, I was uninformed like many and I had no idea who Dennis Kucinich was. Luckily he has scraped his way and isn't being cropped out of debate pictures anymore. People will tell you that they don't get coverage because of their poll results but its the other way around, they don't get the poll results because they get no national advertising like those who lead the polls.

Folks, this isn't the first debate. What is it? The 99th?

After all the debates he HAS participated in, doing nothing more than sniping at the others and the "system", his kooky suggestions, etc....

If after all of these debates, if he had anything people wanted to hear, his poll numbers would be higher, and his fund raising would be better too...

We have the best leadership money can buy.

The first 2 are the easiest. The third might be more difficult. Gravel has only raised $238,000. That's extremely low. http://opensecrets.org/pres08/index.asp

My feeling are that 1 and 2 are valid. The third is debatable.

:(

MSM shouldn't be allowed to just make up arbitrary criteria as they go in order to exclude candidates they don't like. Purposely taking measures to limit our choices is very close to deliberate interference with a public election. People should be talking about this.