On October 10, Rob Sarvis was told he will not be included in the only remaining Virginia gubernatorial debate, because even though he has been at 10% in some polls recently, the average of polls for the last period is only 9%. See this story.
In 2010, there were 40 states which held general election debates for Governor, U.S. Senator, and/or Congressman-at-Large, and in 24 of them, at least one minor party or independent candidate was invited into a debate with both the major party nominees. The 24 states were Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Also there was a Texas gubernatorial debate that included the Democratic, Libertarian, and Green nominees, but the Republican did not participate.
Is it ironic that Virginia’s habits for debates are so restrictive compared to other states, given that Virginia was home to Thomas Jefferson. Thanks to Independent Political Report for the link.
I hope he sues. I strongly doubt that they published that specific criteria in advance.
Wow, this is just complete nonsense. Shame on Virginia Tech for hurting us voters by discouraging the growth of new parties. Oh, 9% is too low? Gimme a break, that’s close enough, we want to see another option presented.
VA – also home to George Washington, James Madison, Patrick Henry, George Mason (who wrote most of the 1776 VA Bill of Rights – model for the other State Bills of Rights and the later 1789-1791 USA Bill of Rights).
See the book – Source of Our Liberties, edited by Richard L. Perry (1959)
The USA was taken over in 1865 by the minority rule gerrymander robot party hack monsters.
P.R. and App.V.
The best revenge is more TV ads. I just donated $100.
From what I’ve seen before, the debate requirement for a third-party candidate was stated as being reaching a 10% threshold in a statistically significant poll. Which poll(s) were viewed for the criterion was specifically stated as being at the sole discretion of the TV station’s news director, Kelly Zuber. Now they could have cherrypicked and chosen Roanoke or CNU, for instance, even though those two aren’t highly regarded. Instead, they chose the RealClear Politics average, which a) is changing the rules after the fact, because it’s not one poll and b) is inaccurate. Some of the polls in there are almost a month old (NBC/Marist poll), some offered “someone else” as an option even though there is not a 4th option on the ballot (Rasmussen), and a Zogby poll showing Sarvis at 12.7% and a Bearing Drift poll showing him at 10.8% are excluded for some reason. This isn’t just because RealClear hates Zogby and Bearing Drift, they also inexplicably never showed a PPP poll from August that had Sarvis at 9%, while showing all other PPP polls for this election. RealClear isn’t meant to be used as a standard objective criterion for determining the outcome of an election. This deserves a lawsuit.
What a load of rubbish! Someone needs to get ahold of the group with the chicken suits (I think they were with the Green Party), so they can give this organization (and the Democratic and Republican candidates for governor) some Biggest Chicken Awards like the one they gave to the Romney campaign last fall. And then there ought to be a fairly sizeable protest at the debate location. And then whoever is making these exclusionary hack debate decisions should also get the living daylights sued out of them.
Too bad I’m broke and live in Illinois, or I’d go donate to and protest for Sarvis despite me being a Green.
Found a link mentioning the original debate inclusion criteria. Clearly, under pressure from Cuccinelli (or a threat not to participate), the rule changed TO a 3 week average of 10%, FROM “10 percent or above on Thursday, Oct. 10, in major independent statewide polls. The decision concerning what polls are to be used to determine eligibility will be at the discretion WDBJ7.”
http://washingtonexaminer.com/ken-cuccinelli-asks-virginia-debate-organizers-to-raise-bar-for-third-party-candidates/article/2536513
These rules were set up and agreed to by the major party candidates. There need to be laws mandating that debate rules are contractually agreed upon by ALL ballot-qualified candidates, rather than pairs of them.
WHAT?!?! BULL FRIGGIN CRAP!!!!!
Not that I’m that surprised or anything, but WOW that was effin’ low.
I’m facing religious bigotry against Gandhians in Texas law in my run for Texas Governor.
Google real clear politics robert sarvis and you will see at the top highlighted in yellow that he is averaging 10% in the polls. That was the latest criteria they changed to so they could exclude him. He has hit that mark, what are they going to change it to now?
Curious optics – Virginia, a confederate state, only lets white candidates with white spouses in its gubernatorial debate – Just Sayin!