What if GOP Candidates escorted Carly Fiorina onto debate stage?
Carly gets a bum deal
Thursday night, ABC announced the lineup for tomorrow’s New Hampshire debate. Carly Fiorina was left off the roster.
To put it politely — Carly got royally screwed.
For the first time this primary season there will be no undercard debate, leaving Fiorina and Gilmore the only candidates unable to participate in the network’s pre-New Hampshire primary debate.
Fiorina placed higher in the Iowa Caucus than two other approved debate contenders — Governors Chris Christie and John Kasich. The debate also
The Washington Post‘s Phillip Bump has the best illustration of the polling breakdown:
Earlier this week, Fiorina wrote an open letter appealing to the network and the Republican National Committee. She argued the ever-changing debate requirements should compel debate organizers to allow her participation.
ABC and the RNC may keep me off their debate stage. But this isn’t about me. #LetCarlyDebate #FITN
— Carly Fiorina (@CarlyFiorina) February 5, 2016
Ben Carson, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney all tweeted their support for Carly’s debate participation:
Hey @ABC: put @CarlyFiorina on the debate stage! She got more Iowa votes than John and Chris. Don't exclude only woman.
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) February 4, 2016
With 9 Republicans left, I call on the RNC to get rid of arbitrary requirements for debates. Americans deserve to hear from every candidate.
— Dr. Ben Carson (@RealBenCarson) February 4, 2016
.@abcnews should put @CarlyFiorina in the new hampshire debate.she came in ahead of kasich and christie. She has earned a spot.
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) February 4, 2016
But that wasn’t enough to persuade the powers that be.
Professor Jacobson asked:
What would @ABC do if other candidates escorted @CarlyFiorina onto stage in solidarity agst media? #LetCarlyDebate https://t.co/sWA8uedgv9
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) February 5, 2016
Polling strictness or a concerted effort to keep the only woman candidate out of the debate? I’m not one to presume sexism where it doesn’t exist, but in this particular instance, it seems a valid question.
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Comments
While I love this lady’s mind, none of the three mentioned should be out there this time.
But neither should Jeb!
(DUDE! Take a hint… Fer reals…!!!)
We are in agreement, Rags. And, well put. Carly is unelectable this time around… and, so is Jeb as you point out.
Neither can do anything to change that so their only real role is playing offense against the ones who are actually in the running.
Nor that rube Rubio.
She doesn’t deserve to be there, plain and simple. The only reason people are talking about her not being there is because she wears a skirt. If she were a man and without benefit of the poor pitiful me pro-female gender bias NOBODY would be saying she should be there.
If women are for equality then they need to be for equality when it hurts and not just when it provides special benefits.
Carly has gone a lot farther than you, Mook the Misogynist. A lot farther. And she has class.
We pity you.
Now don’t start crying. In the real world you will from time to time meet people who want to treat women fully equally instead of PC pretend equally.
And if you really pity me then SEND ME MONEY.
Like Trump and the Deemocrats you think money is the answer to your pathologies.
If you need security and bromace…well, you’d make an excellent Islamist.
It seems to me that you are the one who is acting like an intolerant PC democrat or feminazi as Rush would say. I simply propose that Fiorina be treated truly equally to a similarly situated male, and because I fail to bow down to your gods of PC phony women’s equality then according to you I hate women and have some kind of mental illness.
What is next out of your mouth re-education classes for people who believe in true equality for women and not your particular version of special favors and affirmative action for people in skirts??
You are a pathetic hypocrite. Just a sad bitter old witch. Go tell it to somebody who gives a crap about anything you think.
In your reply to rotten below I see that you might be OK with USING women to make a point.
I’d like to make a point…
“If I want to vote for some pandering puke bowing and scraping to the liberal god’s of symbolism over reality, I’d vote for” one Donald J Trump.
“The only reason people are talking about her not being there is because she wears a skirt.”
Obviously Hillary Britt you didn’t read Kemberlee’s post. She stated her opinion that based on Carly’s merits – caucus votes – she should be in the debate. Read the large print.
“Just a sad bitter old witch.”
The last time I saw a comment like that it had a dick in it.
She’s the only one so far with the ‘nads to take on Hillary, mano-a-mano.
Fiorina definitely has a case for being part of the debate, since she has gotten more actual votes than two of the people who will be there.
The Professor’s suggestion that the other candidates escort her onto the stage is perfect!
If that can’t happen, they should bring back the early debate: take the top 4 or 5 for the later debate, and everyone else for the earlier one.
Imagine the visual impact of the Professor’s suggestion, which would swiftly nuke the #WarOnWomen meme Team Hillary is banking on. It would be glorious!
If I want to vote for some pandering pukes bowing and scraping to the liberal god’s of symbolism over reality, I’d vote for a democrat.
I’m not sure how it would be pandering to anyone.
The situation is that we have one candidate who will not be on the debate stage and who received more actual votes – not polling percentage points – than two other candidates who will be on the debate stage.
To have the others stand with that candidate would show a (rare) solidarity in the party.
We anticipate that you will so vote.
Your powers of observation and deduction are truly mind boggling.
There’s not a ghost of a chance she’ll be the nominee. Which means that at this point she’s just noise.
I’m not one to presume sexism where it doesn’t exist, but in this particular instance, it seems a valid question.
Hardly. According to that WaPo graphic, Fiorina has by far the weakest aggregate numbers. If one of them has to go, she’s clearly the one. Maybe somebody is indeed presuming sexism where it doesn’t (or, rather, hasn’t been shown to) exist.
Of course, re the infographic, that note “data from Huffington Post Pollster” sets off some alarms.
By now everyone knows who the real field is, its Trump, Rubio, and Cruz (in no certain order). Those are the only 3 that should be on stage at this point. Simple debate rules if you national average isn’t above 10% by now then you don’t make the stage, simple.
It’s true Fiorina doesn’t belong in the debate; it’s also true that Bush, Kasich, and Christie don’t belong in the debate. And it’s just as clear that they don’t belong there as it is that she doesn’t belong there. And in the only *objective* measure available – votes from Iowa – she outdoes two of them.
Trump, Rubio, and Cruz do belong in the debate, with Carson as the edge case; Rand would have the next-best case if he were still in the running, but I’d say keep him out.
I don’t see the others escorting Carly Fiorina onto the stage, but one or more of them should take time during the debate to point out how she got screwed by ABC.
And to really make it sting, say it’s part of ABC’s War on Women!
The only woman the feministas want on a debate stage is Hillary. There’s no other explanation.
Who was it that first remembered that the ABC debate 4 years ago before New Hampshire was the debate where George Stephanopolis launched the War on Women (that eventually tanked Romney)?
If ABC tries anything similar, you want Fiorina on the stage.
Trump already answered the war on women, but the other candidates really haven’t yet. If former Hillary surrogate is planning an ambush for Rubio or Cruz, now would be an opportune time to do so.
Yours is the only decent reason for why Fiorina could serve a purpose for being on the stage. Not sure if it is enough to outweigh reasons she doesn’t deserve to be there however.
A good point and one I remember at the time. When George (full disclosure: unlike George, I’ve not given a dime to the Clinton Foundation) asked about birth control at that debate, my response was “what the hell? Why is he asking THAT?” Then I figured it out.
Now ABC has a chance to do it again. Carly would be good anti-snake venom to have handy even if she’s going nowhere in the national campaign.
If Carly was a man, when she announced she would have gotten nowhere.
People would have been making jokes about how such an abysmal failure even thought they had a chance. No one would have donated to her campaign.
ABC set the criteria before caucus. They had no way of knowing who would be on stage. This is not the Democratic primary, we don’t change the rules for political expediency.
And if we change the criteria, then really should be tightened so that we exclude more people.
In the last week three candidates dropped out. There should be fewer people on the debate stage.
Maybe, if Carly was a man, she would be a lot like Trump – businessman, no real political experience, etc. – only a lot more articulate (?)
person
???? I have no idea how this post even happened.
Just more evidence that the GOPe is afraid of strong women.
No, it’s ABC that doesn’t want to show strong GOP women.
It appears as though a lot of Trump supporters don’t want Carly there because she will make the Donald look more stupid than he already does.
What harm can come of Carly being on the debate stage? I mean other than her destroying Trump.
Yeah right because she has been so successful at destroying Trump and all the other men so far. She attacked Trump and immediately went south in popularity and the polls and she has never recovered. She is just an establishment troll with no popular support whatsoever. The harm she would do is eat up time that could be used by the other candidates who still have a chance to do something in New Hampshire.
Fiorina wants to take the fact that all the other losers have dropped out leaving her the last loser standing as a reason she should get promoted to the non-loser category. Doesn’t work that way. Not for men and not for a woman getting treated equally to the men.
They’re all pretty much dummies. The whole “debate” debacle could have been avoided if they’d agreed to split costs to rent a venue and had an actual debate format with real questions on their respective positions with clearly defined response times.
Television would have been free or they could have charged the networks to cover the debate to defray the costs.
What we’ve had is BS questions and third grade taunts basically from the clown shows that have been staged.
The rules were in place. By the rule, Fiorina is out. You charge ABC with sexism?
So, when a woman is involved we need to bend the rules…
I find that to be sexist.
It’s not that Fiorina is a woman, it’s that she’s about the only one who has been taking it to Hillary. Fiorina has more brains and testicular fortitude than most of the men up there.
The rest of the population and primary voters have evaluated her and found her to be in the category of Huckabee and Santorum and Pataki AND NOT in the category of Kasich and Bush and Carson.
How could Fiornia have been evaluated when the GOPe won’t let her on the stage?
good lord. She was on the stage and evaluated.
Found lacking. Polling currently at <3%.
So, you want to change the rules because she has “more testicular fortitude”?
Why don’t we just give all the kids a trophy?
Maybe we can throw in a pony or two.
Having Fiorina out there with the narrowed field makes the GOP look and sound better even though she’s just another GOPe Amnesty hack. Cruz or Trump, it’s time to start thinking about November.
Of course the best solution would be Cruz and Trump in a Big League Debate, and the rest of them in an Amnesty Hack Special with cartoons and Barbra Streisand fillers during the breaks.
I would pay to see Cruz show T-rump for what he is, a total phoney who believes in forcing seizure by use of public domain.
If Carly wants to be able to present her case. hold a presser an hour or two before the group slug fest and in clear, direct diction give her presentation and invite questions from the audience, make sure that it ends before the start of the group presser.
She does need to be clear in her proposals, the time for vagueness is over.
Here she is answering some questions anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHwI3meF1bg
I think the reason ABC doesn’t want Carly there is because of the striking contrast between her and Hillary in terms of communication skills and ideas.
Yes, the other candidates should escort her in. f ABC will not be gracious enough to het her a lectern, one of the other candidates should offer to share. Everybody should give Carly a few minutes to offer her responses to some of the questions.
ABC has sucked for ears. They’re basically as bad as NBC.
I have a quesstion for Mr. Jacobson.
Once they escort Carly to the stage, should the candidates sing a round of “Kombayah”?
GOP debate rules are just party rules, not laws; the GOP can and should change them at will, as they see fit, in pursuit of victory over the Democrats. Ultimate electability of any candidate measured on February 6 is a fool’s errand, based only on ‘polls’ and a single primary caucus in a small, rural midwestern state.
What does either party want in a debate? You want to showcase your candidates. Often the total slate of a candidate’s platform leads to eventual defeat, but many may have an individual policy which is superior – it needs to be heard for the sake of the idea more than the actual candidate. Freedom of speech allows for the airing of all ideas, each one living or dying on its merits rather than on whether it was permitted to be heard.
Carly Fiorina has a razor sharp mind and a tongue to match. No other candidate has carved up Hillary like Fiorina has. Whether this is because the other candidates are male, therefore SEXISM, is moot. The GOP’s chances in the general are enhanced by Fiorina’s presence on stage in this debate, if only because of the way she can and has gone after Hillary so effectively.