It’s almost here, everyone’s favorite season of the year. No, not autumn, and no, not football season either … it’s debate season. And it kicks off Thursday, August 6 with the first debate between the Republican candidates on the Fox News Channel.
As overwhelmingly joyful as everyone must be for this wonderful time, debate season has not started without a hitch. An issue this year is that the Republican field of viable candidates for nominee is relatively overstocked. Depending on who you ask, there are as many as twenty respectable candidates running for the GOP nomination, and certainly no less than fifteen. The problem with that being that it makes for one crowded debate stage.
So Fox News decided that for the first debate, the one they’re organizing, they would draw the line at the top ten candidates according to the average of the five most recent legitimate national polls. This line is left somewhat vague, garnering much criticism, from all sides, including from the camps of would-be left out candidates.
Fox News still has not told GOP campaigns which "5 national polls" network will use to make cut for primetime debate http://t.co/SOPhrj3OmB
— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman) July 30, 2015
“Total confusion” inside Fox News as execs undecided on what polls to use for debate: http://t.co/qmx1yh6kIp
— Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) July 30, 2015
Someone should make a list of all the bad ideas, corrosive trends and craven decisions that went into this Fox debate http://t.co/GVi6qThXNq
— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) July 30, 2015
Lindsey Graham to Fox: Your Debate Rules ‘Lousy,’ ‘Dumb Way to Weed Out the Field’ http://t.co/ejKqxW6wxx (VIDEO) pic.twitter.com/g03HP323hR
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) July 10, 2015
Fox just recently announced that it was now lowering the threshold for participation, no longer requiring that anyone must be polling with a 1 percent average, and has set up a pre-debate event for the same evening including the candidates that will not make it into the real thing.
FOX lowers threshold below 1% to let Graham and Fiorina in kids'-table debate, via @mikeallen http://t.co/4EwAM2NW7E
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) July 28, 2015
Kasich in, Perry out: The latest on next week's debate. (Reminder: Fox's rules vague, so who knows!) http://t.co/ruWGKJlKGj
— Scott Clement (@sfcpoll) July 30, 2015
Amongst all this confusion and outrage, there is another factor which makes this night of television and politics a must-watch:
Fox VP of News Bill Sammon said on campaign conf call that candidate who's #1 in polls will be center stage in debate http://t.co/SOPhrj3OmB
— Gabriel Sherman (@gabrielsherman) July 30, 2015
And that, according to every major poll that’s out right now, means this:
If you're Fox News you put Trump in the center at the debate and in between Bush and Walker right?
— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) July 30, 2015
