Should Ron Paul be allowed at Sunday's debate?

There seems to be a debate going on between Fox News and New Hampshire Republicans over precisely who will participate in this weekend's presidential debate.

Rumor has it that online fundraising sensation and Texas congressman Ron Paul and San Diego congressman Duncan Hunter will be excluded because their N.H. poll numbers are not in double digits, although Paul's fourth quarter fundraising numbers were way into double digits, nearing $20 million, according to his website. In the first 240 minutes of the new year, nearly $11,000 more came in.

Over the weekend a Fox News spokeswoman told Top of the Ticket that the New Hampshire Republican Party was making the choice of candidates to participate in the televised GOP presidential debate on Jan. 6 with Chris Wallace moderating. She even provided the chairman's e-mail: fergus@nhgop.org to confirm that. Alas, the chairman never responded to us.

Then, on Monday, that state party chair, Fergus Cullen, issued a statement saying that limiting candidates was not in the party's tradition, suggesting the media should not be in the ....

business of excluding serious candidates and talks were continuing with Fox.

So whose decision is it?

Understandably, neither side apparently wants to incur the online wrath of Paul's passionate parishioners, who scour the Internet around the clock and descend like locusts on any opportunity to praise Paul or right perceived wrongs on any website or blog they can find. If word got out that Fox/News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch's e-mail was rmurdoch@newscorp.com, his mailbox would be full in a flash.

Paul's supporters have set up a special protest website to marshal support, as well as urge his fervent followers as follows:

"We need to send a message to Fox's Rupert Murdoch & his fellow Neocon buddies that he is not Musharraf and the U.S. is not Pakistan, yet!  Fox News cannot just stifle public opinion, debate and impact a primary election by excluding Ron Paul just because they don't like his message of freedom and liberty. Cover them up with e-mails and they will just say it was a mistake or miscommunication.  Be respectful as all of the e-mail addresses below are just employees trying to keep their jobs with the world's largest media monopoly."

The mainstream media -- or msm -- are a particular target of Paul's vociferous followers, an eclectic mix of libertarians and disaffected Republicans, Democrats and, until now, non-voters. Outspoken to say the least, they disregard stories like this one and this one and this one and this one and this one and this one. They believe that major newspapers and broadcast networks have conspired to pay insufficient attention to Dr. Paul, a 72-year-old ob-gyn and 10-term House member, citing his low numbers in polls, which Paulites believe are self-fulfilling frauds designed to cause voters to invest their votes in more traditional candidates with a seemingly more realistic chance of winning.

Only when these followers, led by a mysterious amateur musician and fundraiser, began making their average $100 campaign donations by the thousands last fall, setting a new one-day online record in excess of $6 million and making Paul the only Republican candidate to increase his donations every quarter in 2007, did the media begin paying attention. But no amount of attention seems sufficient for Paulites, who complain when there is no coverage and then complain again about any coverage they do get. Watch the comments section below.

They gather in chatrooms and more than 1,200 meet-up groups across the country to paint signs, write letters, organize marches and protests, support each other and otherwise promote the Ron Paul Revolution, which they believe will arrive when primary voting starts.

Some 300 young Paul supporters have been in caucus-training camps in Iowa in recent days and are shooting for maybe a stunning third-place there ahead of more famous fellows like John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson. And they hope to possibly do even better in New Hampshire where the state slogan "Live Free or Die" would seem to lend itself to their cause.

But first fights first. Iowa this Thursday. The Fox forum on Sunday. Then on to New Hampshire and beyond, carrying Dr. Paul's antiabortion, antiwar, strict constitutionalist banner.

--Andrew Malcolm

Comments

[John]

As a Ron Paul supporter I must say I found the information you provided to be quite useful and delivered in a manner that caused me to smile.

Oh, and yes I have been up all night scouring the internet.

Happy New Year.

(Same to you. As you can tell by the posting time, I wasn't exactly out partying either. Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment. Hope to see you back here.)

[Geoffrey Kassin]

Dear Sir

As for this weekends debate why would you want disclude any body who can raise $6,000,000 in one day, why would you want to disclude anybody who still considers them selves a candidate, why would you want to disenfranchise a potential 75,000 - 90,000 viewers. If Fox got behind Ron Paul they would triple there viewers overnight not just Ron Paul supporters but all those viewers that Bill O.riley has offended, all those viewers whose intelligence are continually insulted would all turn back to Fox plus you would keep all your ditto heads. Can't you sell more air time for more money if you get more viewers? What could Fox possibly fear from Ron Paul getting elected isn't he for less government interference in big business?

Get behind Ron Paul Fox, (Rupert Murdoch) and you could make all those other media moguls look like tiny network affiliates.

Geoffrey Kassin
Petoskey, Michigan

Ron Paul 2008

[AndrewInNH]

Thank you for your attention to this issue, Foxes exclusion of candidates from the debate in a race that is still undecided is something that as an American and a Republican I would expect from a state run communist media outlet in some poor country.

The republicans I know are excited to have a candidate that draws much new blood and broadens and diversifies the party. Many of Ron Pauls supporters come from academia and colleges, and peace activist groups, which both have traditionally leaned towards Demcratic candidates.

Fox obviously has an agenda, and that is pushing Rupert Murdoch's desired candidate, Giuliani. This candidate will:

Ban guns and disarm Americans in compliance with the UN's desires.

Create National ID cards. Can you say papers please?

Expand the war drastically by invading Iran and then probably Syria and who knows where else? With this increase in intensity while troops are stretched thin in Iraq and Afghanistan a draft will almost become inevitable.

Disarming a population, enforcing national ID's and expanding military conquest all happened before in Germany in the guise of patriotism post-versaille treaty and I think we can all deduce what it led too. We should truly look at Foxes agenda and what they are pushing for Americans in the post 9/11 atmosphere. Their use of buzzwords and attacks on peoples patriotism who question the war as being against the troops cater to emotions instead of promoting rational thought.

Dr. Pauls attempts to re-evaluate terrorism and why certain people hate the US has been painted as weakness and anti-Americanism (ie Giuliani's comments insinuating that Ron Paul was suggesting Americans were responsible for 9/11). Empathy is a powerful tool for predicting peoples behaviour and the concept of blowback is very real.. 10 Years of sanctions against Iraq has angered a lot of people who's economy and hospital system collapsed. This was all made possible in part to the existence of airbases in Saudi Arabia. Makes sense that they would hate us in these circumstances doesn't it? Yet when Ron Paul uses empathy and reason he is portrayed by Fox as sympathetic. There is a huge difference between empathy and sympathy.

Ron Paul's base of support stems from critically thinking, free minded individuals who are intelligent enouigh to see through propaganda and Fox's pandering to emotions. Intelligence and cool-headed calculation and reason are why I am voting for Ron Paul. His views and policies are simple and minimallistic yet he can debate them in a sophisticated and rich manner filled with historical citation and precedent. No other candidate speaks to us with the same regard for our intelligence as Dr. Paul. Self sufficeincy and freedom are his platform. Wishing you all peace and prosperity in 2008 - Andrew In Nashua, NH

(I wonder who you're voting for Jan. 8. And thanks for visiting our site and taking the time to leave such a thoughtful comment.)

[Mark Thompson]

Like any new forum the internet is the property of the few and vocal. In years to come the established main stream will adopt it and finally all will accept the internet as the preferred free speech medium.
Dr Ron Paul is the first significant beneficiary of this freedom of expression. So if we sound vociferous, or appear eclectic or disaffected tough get use to it!!!! Were only growing....

[Steve Grycel]

Thank you Mr. Malcolm. I didn't have Ruper's email before.

[Charles Held]

Mr. Malcolm, your sentence with all those "this one" links is rather disingenuous since it points to BLOG POSTS instead of PRINT ARTICLES. The L.A. Times is (I'm sure you're aware) first and foremost a NEWSPAPER, and I can assure you that Ron Paul has been woefully UNDER-reported in the Times's principal medium: print.

This is similar to ABCNews's decision to restrict John Stossel's multi-part interview with Dr. Paul to its website, abandoning plans to broadcast it on 20/20.

(Don't forget, Charles, Stossel's longform interview is now available 24/7 online for all to sample anytime, like these blog items. If it had been on TV, you'd get maybe 2 mins, then it's gone forever. You miss it, you lose. Hardly disineguous for us. That's what this is, a blog, and what we do, blog on it. There have been other print articles, tho not dozens like blog items. Don't control TV either. But then we've done nearly 1,100 politics items since June, a lot more politics than the newspaper has printed. And the other day just one of those blog items had nearly a half-million readers, a lot more than any single newspaper story would ever get. Anyway, I thought the old print journalism was dying and the new more democratic form of communication was online. So here we are and here you are. And you can hardly get such an instant opportunity to express yourself as here. Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.)

[W.Stonebraker]

"Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them."

Mr. Malcolm, your bio makes an impression that leads me to believe you should be adoring the story of Americans taking an iniative, mustering bands of otherwise opposed philosophies into one force. My life is but 38 years in the running, I tell you though, I've not ever witnessed such a swell of not to be denied support being lent to, not just a candidate...but the notion of being empowered to seize the proverbial rudder and better control one's own course through waters infested with corrupt federal sharks.
You're going to have to dig around to realize, it's about America, not Ron Paul.
btw...Nader never came close to being endowed with such broad spectrum support.
Good New Year to you Mr. Malcolm.

(Same to you and thanks for reading.)

[Marine]

They believe that major newspapers and broadcast networks have conspired to pay insufficient attention to Dr. Paul, a 72-year-old ob-gyn and 10-term House member, citing his low numbers in polls, which Paulites believe are self-fulfilling frauds designed to cause voters to invest their votes in more traditional candidates with a seemingly more realistic chance of winning.

Where do you get your information? What a buch of horse manuer! Another no name blogger who knows that ripping on the American people who support Dr. Paul will bring comments to his never read bloge. Get a life buddy.

(Hey, Marine, you sure you're reading the same blog item everyone else is? Of course, you can always go read "all the other many blog items about Dr. Paul", if you can find them and such a free forum as this.)

[1440 minutes]

Of course, Dr. Paul should be included in Sunday's forum. He is polling higher than Fred Thompson is, and the polls do not even capture Dr. Paul's demographic of cell phone users.

Did you know that the Fred Thompson campaign failed to get Fred's name on the ballot in DC and Delaware? That's right: residents of DC and Delawareans will not see Fred Thompson's name on the ballot for the primaries. Yet Fred Thompson has been invited to the Fox News forum on Sunday, and Dr. Paul has been excluded.

What reason could Fox News have to exclude Dr. Paul? That he is too conservative? That he opposes the Iraq War?

By the way, the music promoter that you mentioned does not lead us. No one does. We lead ourselves. God bless.

[Justin]

I think it is a shame that Dr. Paul isn't slated to participate in the debates. I think it's important that his message get out. There are still millions of people who do not know who Dr. Ron Paul is or that he is even running because the press seems to focus on the big three Republican candidates, even though Dr. Paul is shown to be well ahead of Guiliani in some polls. It was nice to see Glen Beck focus on Dr. Paul for an entire hour. In this day and age, people cannot understand Dr. Paul's position by hearing 20 second sound bites. It's easy to understand other candidate's positions in 20 seconds because they merely seem to be attacking one another. That's not Dr. Paul's message. Thanks for the well written article.

[Dorothy]

Fox, owned by oligarch Rupert Murdoch, is the most flagrant of the media propaganda machines, but even so, it will back down when confronted by the tens of thousands of Ron Paul supporters who are rebelling against the mismanagement and deceptions of the power structure in this country. Paulists will not stop the activism until we have returned to a stable currency, humanitarian and realistic foreign policy, and dismantled the Washington mega-bureaucracy. More and more people are realizing that Dr Paul is a true leader. The truth is very popular and the men behind the curtain are scared.

[Dan Patrick]

Dr. Paul is not antiabortion. Paul is personally pro-life, however, he is anti-federal government-involved abortion. He would leave the abortion issue to the States. As it should be.

[CoachNY]

From the disrespectful way Paul supporters treated supporters of other candidates at the Iowa Straw Poll to the way they are off-topic and ornery in the comment section of nearly every political post you can find, Ron Paul supporters are largely annoying. If we think there's any connection between the candidate and the type of people who find him/her appealing, Ron Paul must be a lunatic. :-)

[Curtis]

Thank you for this very insightful and wonderful post. We complain so much because it's so apparent to us that many reporters don't do their fact checking before reporting on Ron Paul. You obviously have done your homework and I commend you on it.

That being said, I would like to direct your view at incontrovertible proof of media bias at CNN this morning. They reported the results of the Des Moines Register Iowa poll. They neglected to show Paul's 9% showing even though they showed Rudy at 5% along with everyone else. This is obvious bias when they don't report about the 3 way tie for 3rd place. It makes you wonder how they look at themselves in the mirror and go to work. MSNBC does the same sort of thing when they report on polls.

[Paul Francis]

I find it hard to believe that Fox would be excluding Paul because they truly believe he is an insignificant part of this election process. Firstly, as you rightly mentioned, Paul will most likely end up having raised the most money for the 4th quarter. His increase in funds each quarter is nothing short of astounding. His entire support base has practically had to be referred to him by a friend or aquaintance, or via the internet, which makes the fundraising even more remarkable.

People who work in politics are well aware of the factors which influence people to vote for someone. A certain percentage will only vote for the favourite, as they want to be a 'winner' (sad but true). A larger percentage will only vote for, or even look into, a 'front runner'- as designated by early polls. Of course this means anyone with low name recognition is almost doomed from the beginning. What should happen, in a fair media system, would be for the media to pay EXTRA attention to those candidates who show dramatic improvement. Huckabee certainly deserves a lot of attention, but so does Paul now.

Another interesting thing is gambling odds. Readers may want to think about the significance of these odds as those that set them are in a position solely to be accurate enough to make money. People will no doubt be surprised that Ron Paul is now one of the 'favourites' to win the presidency. Would you know that by watching Fox? I rest my case.

[dinarte m. desousa]

RON PAUL SHOULD DE ALLOWED AT SUNDAY'S DEBATE,BECOUSE ALL THE PRE. CONDIDATES HAVE SHOUD HAVE EQUAL RIGHT'S TO BE ON THE DEBATE.

[Scott Kendall]

I think the people not the polls should count. If they look at Iowa poll numbers Rudy could not be in the NH debate. Stop the coporate take over of the elections.

Scott

[Jeanette Doney]

Allowed? Should an American citizen, a respected Dr., congressman, a competitive candidate for president be "allowed" to debate?

Maybe this question should go to the Supreme Court?

[Wes Akley]

As a US Marine Veteran - I am sick to my stomach knowing that a select few CONTROL the elections. "we the people" need to take America back.

research all political canidates and give them all a fair chance. 60% of the public hasn't even looked into Ron Paul or other canidates unless the mass media tells them to. Stop being SHEEP>

[Les F]

If Ron Paul is excluded it proves how far the military/media industrial complex controls our lives at every level. It's bad enough that the top echelon of both parties are complicit in spending this country into economic slavery to the international banking system - $9,000,000,000,000 worth and counting. As an educated and well read American, Ron Paul represents one of the few chances that are presented in history to change course - Like Lec Walesa in Poland or Nelson Mandela in South Africa. One man CAN make a difference - Ron Paul is that man if the people can see through the media lies and bias.

[Rupert]

"If word got out that Fox/News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch's e-mail was rmurdoch@newscorp.com, his mailbox would be full in a flash."

Andrew, for the Love of God what did I ever do to deserve this ?
Publishing my email address in full view of the Paulites is worse than waterboarding me.

R. Murdoch

[Nefario]

--Andrew, You give Ron Paul ink. What more could anyone ask for? Lets face it, in the "image is everything" world that we live in, Ron Paul is a misfit. Everyone knows that the guy with the best hair wins. But somehow he seems to have gotten it right. He has hit a nerve. He has a knack for saying things that a lot of people seem to be thinking, at a time when people see their freedom shrinking. I like the fact that he shakes up the status quo. His message is clear. He's consistent. People aren't buying the scare tactics anymore. The Dems and the Repugs are the same party! It comes down to Guns and Abortions... At least RP lays it on the line. Kinda like you. Your the best friend The Doc has on the west coast. Keep ignoring him... Nefario

[Rick Young]

The author of this article seemed more interested to be critical of RP's supporters than offer an opinion about RP's inclusion/exclusion to Fox's NH round table event.

You know, you won't get someone like RP nominated/elected in this country if your supporters are not emotional and charged up about their guy. This is a revolution of sorts, though I think the use of that word probably lost some support for RP. How else can they get attention for their man???

[Bob C]

You forgot to mention Ron Paul leads in straw poll victories.
Since that's the case...apparently Straw Polls and post debate polls (he's won most of those too) don't count huh?

Fox News is a blatant cheerleader for everything that limits liberty under the guise of protecting "freedom". We already have a freedom guide..it's called the Constitution.....more "top tier" candidates should read it.

I think we need a Revolution...a Ron Paul Revolution.

GOOGLE RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT 2008 ...JOIN US.

[Dan Farrington]

There are very reasonable explanations for why the polls don't reflect (and have never really reflected) reality. You don't need a conspiracy to explain everything that is wrong with government and media.

In this particular case, you must look at how the polls are taken. They claims they are polling "likely Republican voters" but they don't tell you how they determine that. In most cases, they are polling lists of people that went to the previous election cycle's primaries.

The problem on the Republican side is that in '04, Bush was a wartime incumbent shoe-in and the primary attendance was at a record low. The only people who bothered to show up to poll were loyal Bushies, and that ever shrinking crowd does not represent the majority of the Republican party. So these polls have a faulty test sample.

They also don't take into account young Republicans, Independents, converted Democrats, cell-phone Republicans, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, and first time voters.

The groups above constitute a larger majority of Paul's support that the types of Republicans polled and in each of those categories nationwide, Paul is absolutely dominating compared to other Republicans. His true numbers are at least 250% larger than what the polls are stating.

I am very disappointed that msm continues to show these polls, because they are notoriously inaccurate and have no journalistic value. Plus, there is the moral issue that these polls DO AFFECT the voting and have been shown to be able to devastate a candidate's support.

MSM should report the news, not create it. Its paper and stations need for filler, to say something that appears substantive, something that will draw in more ratings has overcome their journalistic integrity.

You don't need a conspiracy to explain what simple human greed and intellectual laziness can do on their own.