Imagine a Primary Season where voters actually hear from all qualified candidates

[Jim Lane]

33. Nader is a completely different issue.

For those of us in the "Fuck Nader" school of thought that you decry, the whole point is that he did NOT run in the primaries. Instead of exercising his right to run in the primaries, he chose instead to exercise his right to run in the general election.

Many DUers believe strongly that his choice was the wrong one, both in light of the information available to him at the time and even more so with the benefit of hindsight, because of its horrific practical consequences. Many other DUers vehemently disagree. At this point, it's unlikely that either side will just shut up.

None of that has much to do with the determination of "qualified" candidates. The fact is that televised debate invitations and other forms of media attention will go to the comparative handful of candidates perceived as being electorally significant. I've heard it asserted that 300 people (presumably most or all of them meeting the Constitutional qualifications you cite) have announced their candidacies. Whatever the exact number is, it's clear that they can't all be given attention equal to that conferred upon the Clinton-Sanders-Cruz-Paul-Rubio types. The weeding out process includes an initial cut even before the first votes are cast.

The reason Nader is irrelevant to that discussion is that the pre-qualification would not have excluded him. Although he's never held elective office, he had national prominence and a significant following within the Democratic Party. If he had chosen to run for the Democratic nomination in 2000, he would have been included in televised debates with Bradley and Gore, and he would have received media attention early in the campaign season. (Later on, who can say, because the weeding-out process also includes dropping candidates who initially made the cut but are doing poorly. There are those, like Kucinich, who are invited to the initial debates but then not invited to later ones. Nader might have met that fate, though my guess is that he would have done well enough to stay in the mix until the end.)

As a Kucinich supporter, I'll be the first to agree that this system isn't perfect. I just don't understand what alternative you're proposing.