What Larry Sabato said about the Presidential Debate Commission is equally true of Ralph Begleiter and the UD Debates

Referring to Libertarian Presidential candidate Gary Johnson's attempt to get on the October stage with President Obama and Governor Romney, the nationally known UVA political analyst said:

"He's dreaming," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center For Politics. "The debate committee is run by the two (major) parties. They had to let in Perot because at one point he had 40 percent of the vote."

This is, of course equally true of the University of Delaware's Center for Politcal Communication (directed by Ralph Begleiter) that is the supposedly non-partisan entity co-sponsoring this year's statewide debates in Delaware:

It is important enough to keep restating: the eligibility requirements that Mr. Begleiter and Michelline Boudreau (President of Delaware First Media, the other co-sponsor) are NOT non-partisan.

They have consciously adopted standards that will exclude all other candidates beyond members of their own Advisory Council and their doomed Republican challengers, who do not really belong to a major state party any more.

In others words, unless Mr. Begleiter and Ms. Boudreau make the (unlikely) decision to allow the other ballot-qualified candidates like Alex Pires and Scott Gesty onto the stage, it's time for them to admit that they are simply partisan shills for the Democratic Party.

Comments

ChristopherCarlson said…

Gary Johnson will receive a great boost in his national polling during the GOP convention. Ron Paul supporters will gravitate to Gary Johnson. As that happens, more independents will move to Gary Johnson. He needs to get a national rating of 15% to get into the debates. After that let Gary Johnson do the rest.

August 18, 2012 at 11:39 AM

Unknown said…

This article made the NJ today. Thanks for the plug.

August 18, 2012 at 12:28 PM

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