Top Democratic candidates ask the DNC to allow more candidates to participate in debates

[brooklynite]

Vox

Nine Democratic presidential candidates sent a letter to the Democratic National Committee Saturday urging the party to ease the qualification requirements for upcoming debates, highlighting tensions within the party over the decline of candidates of color in a primary field once heralded for being the most diverse in US history.

To make the stage for the December debate — which most candidates have pledged to boycott over a labor dispute at the venue — the party required candidates to receive at least 4 percent in four DNC-approved polls, and have at least 200,000 individual campaign donors.

The requirements for a debate invitation have grown more stringent as the primary has progressed; it is not yet clear whether the next year’s debates will have tougher requirements for participation. Despite this uncertainty, the letter, spearheaded by Sen. Cory Booker and signed by all seven candidates who have qualified for next week’s debate, asks the DNC to hold candidates to one requirement — either polling or donor numbers — instead of both.

The criteria have “unnecessarily and artificially narrowed” the diverse pool of presidential candidates “before voters have had a chance to be heard,” the letter reads. “As a result, candidates who have proven both their viability and their commitment to the Democratic Party are being prematurely cut out of the nominating contest before many voters have even tuned in — much less made their decision about whom to support.”

[TCJ70]

1. The rules are the rules...

... and they were applied fairly to all regardless of each candidates specific characteristics. If you don’t make the cut, so be it. We need to start narrowing this down.

[MBS]

4. + 100 n/t

[LeftTurn3623]

2. I could not think of a more awful idea

If there has been one major complaint about the debates it’s that there are too many candidates on the stage.

If they change anything it should be to make less qualify.

[MBS]

5. I agree a million percent. n/t

[4139]

3. Every one of the nine wish the other eight would drop out.

If the December debate is skipped the dnc should still tightened it for January.

[thesquanderer]

6. "one requirement -- either polling or donor numbers -- instead of both" means Bloomberg...

...could be able to qualify for the debates as well. (As it stands now, he cannot, because he is self-financed and has no donors.)

[Funtatlaguy]

7. Rules don't see color. All candidates knew these rules in advance.