The South Carolina Republican Party's presidential debate is in two days and so far the attendees are still up in the air. Pre-Trump front runner Mitt Romney will be skipping the debate, but making a trip to South Carolina later in the month. Peter Hamby of CNN reports on the expected attendance:
A source familiar with the debate planning said that former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson are likely to be on the debate stage in Greenville. Herman Cain said later Monday that he will also attend.Jason Linkins at Huffington Post also reports that Buddy Roemer has been allowed into the debate. Not included on that list is Fred Karger, who is trying to get into the debate, and the host of unannounced candidates. Michele Bachmann is also notably absent; she's formed an exploratory committee, but hasn't formally announced.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich originally said he would attend but his advisers have since backed away from the commitment.
Karger's campaign is pushing the South Carolina GOP and Fox News to allow him into the debate, releasing a memo to the chair and ED of the SC GOP, as well as Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch. In it, the Karger campaign writes:
I have been very encouraged about the news coming out of South Carolina regarding my participation in your Debate this Thursday. I am sure you saw the Fox News Poll on Friday that had me at 1%. Since Fox News is hosting and broadcasting the Debate, I would think that you agree that I have now met your threshold.The Karger campaign is being disingenuous in the appeal to meeting the debate committee's threshold for participation. The actual requirements are the filing fee and polling 1% in five national polls. Karger has only polled 1% in the single national Fox News poll. Granted, Buddy Roemer wasn't even included in that poll and wouldn't meet that threshold either. Gary Johnson also polled at only 1% in the same Fox News poll. Previous poll performances include 0% in last month's Gallup poll and not being included in recent national polls by McClatchy-Marist, PPP, and CNN. I have to wonder whether Gary Johnson technically meets the debate committee's participation requirements as well.
Buddy Roemer, who has reportedly paid the $25,000 fee and has been announced as a participant in your Debate, has not met the1% threshold in the most recent Fox poll or any others polls that we have seen. As I pointed out in my April 27, 2011 Memorandum to you, if you include Mr. Roemer and not me, my attorneys feel that would be a clear violation of the “objective criteria” requirement of the Federal Election Commission in determining debate participants. This would leave me no other choice than to take this matter up with the FEC.
By your use of “subjective criteria” to pick Debate participants, I cannot think of any reason to leave me out, other than the fact that I am gay. It truly makes no sense.
I also don't know that the accusation of gay bias is going to be helpful to get Karger into the SC debate. The more likely explanation is that the bias is against candidates who have no path to winning the nomination, hence the national polling threshold. And yes, part of the reason Karger will not win the Republican nomination is because he is gay and Republican primary voters tend to not like gays. But the SC GOP needs to apply the electability threshold evenly. Either Karger should be allowed in or Roemer and Johnson should be prevented from participating. I think everyone is best served by having a more inclusive debate field, which would mean allowing Karger in before kicking other candidates out.
The real problem with any argument by the SC GOP against Karger's electability is the field of candidates in the GOP primary. To call them dwarves would demean patriotic dwarves around America. Right now the South Carolina debate panel includes only one arguably electable candidate, Tim Pawlenty, and he's polling behind Ron Paul and Herman Cain! The top five candidates according to polls are Huckabee, Trump, Romney, Palin, and Gingrich. None of them will be at the SC GOP debate. If the South Carolina GOP is fully invested in having a debate with no leading candidates in it, they should just let all marginal candidates in, without discrimination.