Even a clown show has to put a few parameters in place. But the Presidential hopefuls on the left aren’t too happy about that.
The deadline for the next round of debates is fast approaching, and there is a host of angry democrats stewing because they’re likely to be eliminated from the fun and games.
The Democratic National Committee standards say a candidate needs to have 130,000 individual donors. Also, they must be polling at a.33.0. minimum of 2% of potential votes. I’m not really sure why any candidate would be crying about this. If you think about it, there’s no way in hell 130,000 donors and 2% of voters is enough to unseat the most popular president in modern history. Anyone excluded by these standards should bow out before they further embarrass themselves.
But leave it to a leftist to insist on going down in a burst of flames with the whole world watching.
Thus, a few presidential hopefuls demand their inclusion.
As Fox News explains:
“The DNC’s process is stifling debate at a time when we need it most,” charged Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado – a lower-tier White House contender who is all but certain not to qualify for the third round.
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, who also needs a miracle to qualify by the end-of-Wednesday deadline, argued that “these DNC debate rules have turned this primary into the ‘The Hunger Games’ — each step of this seems to be all about getting donors.”
While the criticism is not new – the DNC faced similar jabs earlier this year when many of the longer-shots for the nomination struggled to make the stage at the first and second round of debates – this time around the national party committee is specifically being attacked over the dearth of qualifying polls.
Critics say this is unfairly preventing candidates close to qualifying from actually making the stage.
The campaign of billionaire environmental and progressive activist Tom Steyer – who’s just one poll short of making the stage – charged that its candidate is “being denied” the ability to qualify “by the lack of recent qualifying polls.”
Steyer’s campaign on Friday called on the DNC “to expand their polling criteria to include more qualifying polling, including at least one poll in Nevada before the deadline next week. As a party, we want to ensure the will of the voters is respected.”
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii is two polls shy of qualifying for the third round of debates. Her campaign urged that the DNC “revise their list of debate qualifying polls in light of numerous irregularities in the selection and timing of those polls, to ensure transparency and fairness.”
The Gabbard campaign also argued that “the DNC has not released their criteria for selecting the 16 polling organizations they deemed ‘certified.’”
The congresswoman’s campaign noted that Gabbard topped “2 percent support in 26 national and early state polls. But only two of them are on the DNC’s ‘certified’ list.”
The Numbers
I hate to tell these losers, but Hillary was polling at 45% while Donald Trump held 42% on the day he spanked her in the 2016 election. What is 2% going to do for any of these candidates? Nothing.
Still, these candidates can’t stop themselves from throwing little temper tantrums. No matter how assinine it makes them look. In fact, now they pretend they weren’t given a fair shake.
But as Fox explains:
DNC War Room director Adrienne Watson defended the criteria, telling Fox News that “the debate rules have been public for months, and candidates have been given more opportunities and more time to qualify for debates than in previous cycles.”
And the DNC noted that polling windows – which range from two to six months – are longer than in cycles past and that the approved list of polls is longer than in any previous cycle.
Ten candidates have already qualified to make the stage for the third debate – as well as October’s fourth round.
They are former Vice President Joe Biden; Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey; South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg; former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro; Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas; Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts; and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang.
Klobuchar likened the struggle to make the debate to a “Game of Thrones situation.”
But she highlighted the importance of making the cut – noting “I am really glad to have made it to the debates in the fall. I think that’s going to give me a major opportunity and especially if we go into two nights to be able to answer questions in more than 30-second soundbites.”
Yang told Fox News on Monday that “I’m a little bit biased because I’m making the fall debates so I think the rules are fine… I think the DNC has been very fair and open and transparent.”
And jabbing some of his rivals in a record-setting field of roughly 20 White House hopefuls, the first-time politician said “the rules have been out there for us all to see for months. And if you were going to complain about the criteria, you would probably want to complain about it a little bit earlier in the process to make it seem like it’s not purely self-interested.”
Clearly, democrats are all smoke, no fire. These complainers are hoping a few name-drops on the news will be enough to get them to that coveted 2%. But these sure-losers have no idea what they’re asking for.
If by some freak of nature, one of these unknown candidates actually managed to snag the democrat nomination, they’d still have to face Donald Trump. And he’d mop the floor with any one of these clowns.
