Diegetics

On Monday night, CNN, the New Hampshire Union Leader and other sponsors will hold a debate in New Hampshire -- and Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Herman Cain, Tim Pawlenty, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum will all be attending.

That's virtually every major declared Republican candidate. Except one. And that exclusion -- and the reasoning behind it -- is downright puzzling.

Meet Gary Johnson. He's a two-term governor of New Mexico. (That's one more term than Mitt Romeny and almost two terms more than Sarah Palin.) Johnson holds many positions that Republicans might like: While governor, he did what most politicians find impossible: Actually shrinking government (not just slowing the expansion of government). He vetoed more bills than the 49 other governors combined.

But it's not just the fact that Johnson has more top executive experience than any other GOP candidate (or his success in the very-difficult art of actually limiting government) that makes his exclusion strange. He also qualifies for inclusion in the debate based on CNN's own criteria.

CNN's criterion No. 2 states that any candidate who demonstrates the following will be included in the debate: "A candidate must have received an average of at least 2.00 % in at least three national polls released between May 1 and May 31 that were conducted by the following: ABC, AP, Bloomberg, CBS, CNN, FOX, Gallup, Los Angeles Times, Marist, McClatchy, NBC, Newsweek, Pew, Quinnipiac, Reuters, USA Today and Time."

The Johnson campaign quickly jumped on this criterion and produced required three polls (by CNN, Gallup and Quinnipiac) whose average puts Johnson squarely at 2 percent.

The debate organizers responded: Those polls aren't good enough. Those polls were "restrictive" polls and we only count "unrestrictive" polls, they now say.

“The debate is open to unannounced potential candidates who have significant public support," said Charlie Perkins of North Village Media, a debate organizer and former news executive at the New Hampshire Union Leader. "Therefore, invitations could not be based on restrictive polling that excluded those names."

The problem, however, is that stated criteria do not prohibit the inclusion of "restrictive" polls, as Perkins states. (You can view the criteria here.) Nowhere do the rules state that only "unrestrictive polls" can be counted. Therefore, this last-minute alteration of the criteria is akin to that most-hated sports analogy: Changing the rules in the middle of the game.

It's not fair in sports and it's not fair in politics. Johnson should be included in the debate. The debate organizers, if they wish, should specify their demands of unrestrictive polls for future debates prior to publishing the criteria. They didn't in this case. And they shouldn't change the rules to justify the exclusion of a candidate whom they had already improperly decided to exclude.


SOMEONE OF SOME INFLUENCE DOESNT WANT THE PUBLIC TO HEAR GARY JOHNSON'S COMMON SENSE APPROACH TO AMERICA'S DIRE STRAITS....

rick sanitorium is kosher...

so is homey herman...

but not Johnson.

WHY?

Because the GOP doesn't like actual Libertarians.

not monolithic...

GOP is more accurately described as neolithic

ever since the party commissars purged

all the moderates they called RINOS.


Yep .

Neolithic.

Gary Johnson would get my vote over Obama and all today's New Hampshire junior varsity...

even over Ron Paul because Johnson has a proven record of walking his talk.....


but since he's been frozen out by our media masters while they flaunt

another hot Christian cougar who hasnt even declared her candidacy....

I will vote for whoever is most likely to create the soonest systemic failure

so we can overcome the entrenched parasites feeding off the body politic.


But I cannot shake the notion Republicans want control of the house and senate

where the power of the purse resides and dont want the white house

so they can blame Democrats for the continued misery

brought about by the Cheney Bush execution

of Grover Norquist's strategy to kill

government by spending it

into oblivion.


In this scenario, the Obama farcical progressive act/fraud upon the electorate

is although damnable, merely off stage action signifying little but a diversion.

IMVHO





YOU WERE TOLD IN 2003 WHAT WAS COMING

07/01/03: "ICH"


Some have wondered if GW Bush knows what he's doing with his tax cut that benefits the corporations and the very rich, and cuts away the remaining money of the poor and the middle class. I say yes, he does know what he'd up to, as do his corporate advisors and his neo-con economist friends and theorists, chief among them Grover Norquist. Norquist has been the chief architect behind the dismantling of the American federal financial structure in terms of benefits for the common citizen, but has helped to create the superstructure of tax breaks for the very rich and the corporatocracy that now has a choke-hold on America.

The plan is very simple, but not obvious on first blush. Make sure that all the money is gone from the U.S. treasury, make sure the deficits are so great that all social and educational programs are cut, increase the military and security budgets to "protect our nation" with all these monies going to corporations and security firms who are extra-national (not tied to any country, but actually more than multi-national in that they are outside the purview of any nation at any single moment) and stave in the social security fund by allowing it to go to private corporations for "investment"-and you have the perfect scenario for saying, "only the private sector can save us-we're broke and they have the money to run every program, fund every program, but of course, at huge costs and profits for the private corporations."

This plan is so obvious at this point that it is hard to believe because it is happening so fast and the Democrats and even conservative non- neo-con Republicans don't realize what Bush and his neo-con buddies are up to.


http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... le3977.htm



repeat:

Make sure that all the money is gone from the U.S. treasury, make sure the deficits are so great that all social and educational programs are cut, increase the military and security budgets to "protect our nation" with all these monies going to corporations and security firms


BRAVO CHENEY BUSH

MISSI0N ACCOMPLISHED

WHO WILL TELL THE AMERICAN PEOPLE?

thanks for the gold star but re not accurate:

WHICH RINOS REMAIN?

what happened wasnt a purge?

political parties dont have comissars?

or is it the turn of phrase you both like and dislike?


just so I remain clear on how to please in the future....

What's wrong with purging? Are these people entitled to office or something?

So you are for purging? Wouldn't that make you a teabagger?

The whole liberal establishment was for that purge. There is nothing wrong with that, just don't pretend it wasn't what it was. Nothing wrong with a purge.