Terry Mitchell

Should We Limit the Number of Debate Participants?



Posted: Monday, September 19, 2011

by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com

Here we go again! We now have Bill O’Reilly calling for the number of candidates at the GOP debates to be limited to the two or three frontrunners. He claims that the others are just a “distraction.” That’s a ludicrous notion, but it comes up during every presidential campaign cycle, without fail. Before a single vote is cast in a primary or caucus, people are wanting to eliminate candidates for a party’s presidential nomination.

The paring down of candidates is something that should never happen until at least two or three nominating contests are held. Why should public opinion polls, which don’t count for anything, be used to pick winners and losers, and ultimately limit voters’ choices before a single vote is actually cast? But kicking people out of debates at this point in the cycle would do just that. By not being able to participate in the debates, a candidate cannot get his or her voice heard and will subsequently disappear off the media’s radar. As a result, their candidacy will be snuffed out before it even gets started.

Look at what has happened to current GOP presidential candidates like Gary Johnson, Buddy Roemer, and Thaddeus McCotter. I’ll lay odds that most potential GOP primary and caucus voters don’t even know these guys are running. Instead of cutting back on the number of candidates that have been participating in the debates thus far, these gentlemen should be allowed in to participate as well. If any of the others, such as Rick Santorum, Herman Cain, or Jon Huntsman, had been excluded from the previous debates, I doubt that anyone would know that they were running either.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s a catch-22. Someone is not doing well enough in the polls in order to qualify for the debates. By not being allowed to participate in the debates, they have no chance to boost their poll numbers. So at this point in the game, I say the more the merrier. Forget about that foolishness that calls for focusing only on the frontrunners. Debate organizers should not allow polls and media bullies such as O’Reilly to dictate who can and can’t participate in their forums.

By the way, most of the U.S. media is now calling the GOP presidential contest a two-man race. I have two questions: Why are they calling Michele Bachmann a “man” and who is the other candidate they are referring to? If they believe it’s a two man race between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, they need to think again. Sure, they are two at the top of the top of the polls right now, but for how long? Perry could well be just the flavor of the month, and Romney’s credentials with conservative GOP primary voters is questionable at best.
Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, amateur political analyst, and blogger from Virginia, USA. He posts a least one article a day to his blog - http://commenterry.blogs.com - on subjects such as current events, politics, technology, society and culture, religion, health and well-being, self improvement, personal finance, trivia, and sports. He is also the owner of a new privacy-enhanced search engine - http://www.SearchMost.com.

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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by Steve Kovacs
 243 days 3 hours ago.
96 fans. Follow Steve Kovacs on twitter!
I agree--basically, the more the merrier at this point.
» left by Terry Mitchell 242 days 23 hours ago.
93 fans.
Steve, thanks for reading and commenting ... and I'm glad you agree.
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