Jesse Benton: CBS treatment of Ron Paul DISGRACEFUL

Third parties dont work anymore. Ross Perot was successful because he sued states to get himself on the ballot and had the money to do it. Many states changed their laws in response to make it even harder for a 3rd party to get on the ballot.

In addition, the committee on presidential debates is run jointly by the RNC and DNC. They made the mistake of inviting Perot in 1992 and subsequently changed their rules to prevent that from ever happening again. As long as the political parties control the debates, no third party will stand a chance.

Until we start publicly funding elections and subsequently ending the ability of the parties to control the process, third parties won't win and people like Ron Paul will be forced to fight from within the party structure.

 

Hightop treats it as fact and makes the argument that we absolutely should be listening to whoever our veterans value the most. If it turns out that, say, Obama gets the most money from veterans, I'd like to see if Hightop would then agree with Obama on foreign policy.

 

its a damn shame the only GOP candidate saying anything different than the others gets 90 seconds in a 90 minute debate.

 

It is manipulated.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=367437

WASHINGTON – Michele Bachmann's plenty steamed about her treatment in tonight's CBS News/National Journal debate between GOP presidential candidates.

Several times throughout the course of the 90-minute presentation, Rep. Bachmann, R-Minn., attempted to follow-up questions and answers by other candidates – just as the moderators of the debate suggested they would be allowed to do at their discretion.

But despite often vociferous attempts to weigh in, the moderators chose other candidates.

Now the Bachmann campaign is going public with evidence CBS News planned all along to snub her.

 

I consider the Perot experiment an abject failure. His message was true, important and ignored. The same message as Jimmy Carter saying "Energy Policy was the moral equivalent of war" which turned out to be absolutely true and ridiculed.

 

you are right - we dont know if they are "veterans" so that should be reworded to say "active duty military" or "people who are employed by the military" - they may not be technically "veterans", but they are members of the military and among them paul is leading in donations.

the dollar amount may be insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but i think it says alot that the only candidate on either side who is advocating total withdrawal and closure of overseas bases (and the only one to actually serve in the military) is the leading fundraiser among people employed by the military.

 

Geez, if their opinions are so important, we should re-write the Constitution to limit the vote to them. As it now stands, it's one man one vote, and they can do whatever they want with their votes. Why should anyone care where vets put their dollars?

 

What does it say besides the fact that soldiers are voting for self-interest, as do most other voters? If you're stuck overseas or at risk of being shipped there away from your friends and family, of course you're going to prefer the candidate that promises to bring you home. It's no different than oil drillers voting for a candidate that promises oil drilling tax cuts or poor people voting for people that support programs for the poor.

 

This is part of why I asked earlier if anyone knows how much time the other candidates who are down in the polls got. What you show here is that CBS made a decision to not focus Bachmann because she is doing poorly in the polls. While I don't agree with that policy this shows that maybe Paul wasn't singled out but that this was a general police to not give more attention to low polling candidates.

 

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/smartpolitics/2011/10/equal_time_romney_records_one.php

I believe Paul has been polling in the top 3. However he is getting the least time in the debates.

<strong>Time Allotted to Republican Presidential Candidates During the Last Three Debates</strong> <table align="top" border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="416"> <tr> <td width="81" height="10"><div align="left"><strong>Candidate</strong></div></td> <td width="61" height="10"><div align="right"><strong>&nbsp;% FL 1</strong></div></td> <td width="66" height="10"><div align="right"><strong>% FL 2*</strong></div></td> <td width="68" height="10"><div align="right"><strong>% NH 2</strong></div></td> <td width="108" height="10"><div align="right"><strong>Total time</strong></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="10"><div align="left">Romney</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">15.8</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">19.9</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">25.0</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">41 min. 9 sec.</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="10"><div align="left">Perry</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">20.0</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">16.8</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">14.1</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">34 min. 12 sec.</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="10"><div align="left">Bachmann</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">12.5</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">10.5</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">12.3</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">23 min. 59 sec.</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="10"><div align="left">Huntsman</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">11.3</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">12.7</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">8.6</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">21 min. 47 sec.</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="10"><div align="left">Cain</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">8.1</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">10.7</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">12.5</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">21 min. 6 sec.</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="10"><div align="left">Gingrich</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">11.1</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">9.8</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">9.7</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">20 min. 41 sec.</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="10"><div align="left">Santorum</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">10.4</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">12.0</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">8.5</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">20 min. 38 sec.</div></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="10"><div align="left">Paul</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">10.7</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">7.7</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">9.2</div></td> <td height="10"><div align="right">18 min. 47 sec.</div></td> </tr> </table>

 

This wouldn't have anything to do with his usually brief dismissive responses to most questions, would it?

 

Owned

 

Not really. Everyone knows he won't be the GOP nominee because he fundamentally opposes the vast majority of the GOP platform. I would venture a guess that a good portion of the 10% he's getting in polls isn't even from Republicans or Republican-identifiers. So why should they waste time on him in the debate to choose their nominee?

I'll bet a Libertarian would make some noise in a Dem primary too but like Paul everyone would know he had zero shot at the nomination because a Libertarian is not a Democrat any more than he is a Republican.

The problem here is not that Paul's being ignored, it's that he's running in the wrong race.

 

With the exceptions of Bachmann (who should be lower) and Gingrich (who should be higher) I'd say the moderators have done a pretty good job of spending the most time with the most viable candidates.

Paul is less likely to get the GOP nomination than Huntsman or even Santorum, because he's the only one running for the nomination that isn't actually a Republican. He hardly even meets the criteria to be called a RINO.

This is my opinion on the order of viability:

1. Romney
2. Perry
3. Gingrich
4. Huntsman
5. Santorum
6. Cain
7. Bachmann
8. Paul

 

It's actually not. Not all votes are equal in a Republic.

 

According to the CBS Poll the day before the debate Paul was at 5% behind Romney, Cain, Gingrich and Perry.

 

As Batman has pointed out, why doesn't Paul run as what he is? A Libertarian? Why go through this charade of being a Republican, when that's what it is... a charade.

 

the problem is that he's not a corporate w**** willing to sellout his constituents like 99.9% of republican/democrat politicians :grin: