Why Should Fox and CNN Decide?

            I’m troubled by the way that Fox News and CNN are going to select the Republican presidential candidates they will present in the upcoming presidential debates they plan to televise. 

            The networks are going to select the 10 candidates with the highest standing in an average of national polls.  There are 16 declared candidates and one more expected to declare in the near future. That means that seven candidates will be excluded from the debate.

            This table from fivethirtyeight.com gives us the current standings:

            If Fox News makes the cut based on these figures, George Pataki, Lindsey Graham, Carly Fiorina and Bobby Jindal will be watching the debate from home.

            Fox News hasn’t said whether it plans to round polling averages to the nearest full percentage point.  If it does round, then Rick Perry and John Kasich would be in a tie with Rick Santorum, and then both Perry and Kasich would be invited to participate.

            Being allowed to participate in the debate is a very big deal, even though most people will be streaming things like “So You Think You Can Dance” or whatever baseball game happens to be taking place that night.  The debaters will be seen by the national press and a large number of activists and donors who will be crucial to the campaigns when the first caucus participants brave the weather in Iowa early next year.

            Getting into the debate gives a candidate a chance to break through, to get some buzz from the media and to differentiate himself or herself from the pack.  The contestant who don’t get to participate will be “also-rans” who never even got a serious chance to run.

            Now, I don’t have a dog in this fight.  It doesn’t matter to me which of these 17 people will be standing at the podiums when the broadcast begins.  I can’t vote in the Republican primary that will be held here in Maryland next year, and in any event, I’m not likely to vote for any Republican candidate in a general election.

            But what does matter to me is the way that two private companies—Fox News and CNN—have made themselves the gatekeepers for this process and the crucial role that money will play in this process.

            Let’s face it.  As fascinating as I find politics, most Americans don’t share my enthusiasm.  They’re not likely to know (or care) much about politics, government or anything else useful for making sensible political decisions.  And they’re not likely to know anything about most of these people.

            That means that when a person responds to a pollster’s query about which of these candidates he or she would vote for if the election were to be held tomorrow, the response is likely to depend on name recognition.  After all, what are most people likely to know about what, say, George Pataki accomplished while he was governor (of New York, right?).

            How do you develop name recognition?  It helps if you’re already a celebrity, notorious or if you have a big checkbook that enables you to buy lots of advertising.  Donald Trump, for example, has been a reality show star for 14 years, has his name on a number of big, impressive buildings, and besides, he’s rich.  Even if he weren’t going around the country right now saying outlandish things about Mexicans and John McCain, it’s likely that he’d be doing well in the national polls.  Celebrity and notoriety also explain why Jeb Bush and Scott Walker are doing well.

            Though Rick Perry made a terrible impression as a presidential candidate last time around, he is a smart politician.  That’s why his super PAC has diverted $1 million from Iowa and New Hampshire, the first places to select delegates to the Republican National Convention, toward a national advertising campaign.  Erasing the impression of incompetence he earned during the 2012 Republican debates depends on a good performance in the debates this time around. Obviously, he’ll never get that chance if he’s not invited to the debate.      
   

            I’m not cynical enough to believe that Fox News and CNN, both broadcasters with national audiences, set this up to encourage Republican candidates to buy advertising time from them.  And I’m also not naïve enough to think that the best candidates will be propelled to the top of the list because of their success in a rigged marketplace of ideas.  Voters like what they like and want and want for their own reasons. It’s the media’s business to give the people what they want, not what the media thinks the people should have.

            But governance is an important business. Despite the media mantra that the Republican field of candidates is a clown car, there are some serious Republican contenders with ideas worthy of at least being discussed.  We do ourselves a disservice when we allow commercial concerns to decide who is entitled to be heard.