Next Republican Debate, To Be Broadcast By CNBC, Will Require Candidates to Demonstrate "Viability" to Take the Stage; Will Have Fewer Than 10 Candidates

Chuck Todd is creating the ground-rules, so you know: Gold Standard.

Obviously, those candidates at the bottom are making noise about this. Being eliminated from the debate -- and there is not yet any word of a second-tier debate, as we've had in the past -- would be close to an Official Word from The Cathedral that some candidates aren't real candidates.

And we'd have the Media playing their favorite role once again: The Deciders.

Politico's Alex Isenstat and Hadas Gold:

While the RNC doesn’t set the rules, it does have a voice in working with the networks running the debates. The committee has not said how many candidates will be allowed into the primetime debate, which will be held in Boulder, Colorado, and broadcast on CNBC. Nor are there any indications there will be an undercard event, as there have been in the first two debate showdowns of the primary season.

...

A senior adviser to another Republican candidate also expressed suspicion that the party was looking to winnow the field of candidates. "Insiders in Washington want to limit the debates because they want their two favorites, Bush and Rubio, to take on Donald Trump," the adviser said. "They're whispering in [RNC Chairman] Reince Priebus’s ear that, ‘The stage is too big, make it smaller.’"

The radio silence extends beyond the entry criteria to other aspects of the debate -- such as who the moderators will be, and how long the duration will be.

...

"Let's just say the goal is to create a threshold that candidates have to meet to qualify for the stage rather than committing to putting 10 candidates on the stage. And I don’t think we should commit to more than 10-candidate debates. You have to be viable. So now we're in debate three it's time to show viability and only the viable ones survive," Todd said during an interview on ESPN radio last week.

"It's time to show viability." Where do these assholes get this kind of cocky false authority to issue pronouncements like that, as if speaking on behalf of the Pope?

posted by Ace at 01:06 PM

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