And you know what -- they are correct to do so.

The New Hampshire Republican Party dropped their affiliation with a Republican debate sponsored by Fox News tomorrow night because they have limited the number of candidates that can participate.

“The first-in-the-nation New Hampshire primary serves a national purpose by giving all candidates an equal opportunity on a level playing field," said Republican chair Fergus Cullen. "Only in New Hampshire do lesser known, lesser funded underdogs have a fighting chance to establish themselves as national figures."

The Fox debate is excluding Texas Congressman Ron Paul even though he polls higher in New Hampshire and has raised significantly more money, and is campaigning more in New Hampshire than Fred Thompson who is invited.

Quite honestly, I had not had a problem with the decision to drop Ron Paul until the results came in on Thursday. If a 10% showing in Iowa is not sufficient to get you a place on the platform, then FoxNews should also drop Rudy Giuliani from the debate because he has made no significant effort to campaign in New Hampshire and finished in sixth place, with a pathetic 3.4% showing in that state's caucuses. At this point, any organization sponsoring a debate that excludes Ron Paul while including Rudy is not operating in a principled fashion.

On the other hand, there is solid reason for excluding Duncan Hunter, so I disagree with the NHGOP's call for his inclusion.

OPEN TRACKBACKING AT Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Rosemary's Thoughts, 123beta, Adam's Blog, Right Truth, , Shadowscope, Cao's Blog, Big Dog's Weblog, Nuke's, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, third world county, Allie is Wired, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Wolf Pangloss, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Posted by: Greg at 07:26 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 308 words, total size 4 kb.