The Invisible Man Cometh

I received a robo-call from the Gary Johnson campaign today and it led me to reflect on Bloomberg/CNN (purposefully) excluding him from the debates on the 11th and the 18th. Being a New Hampshire resident I get a lot of exposure to the Presidential candidates, and from my perspective I would like to throw these thoughts out there:

Rick Santorum is in the debate, even with the same poll numbers. Johnson has only been in two major debates. Santorum has been in all of them, and still polls that low. People have heard his message, and I would not be going out on a limb to say that short of gold doubloons magically shooting out of his ass to pay down the national debt, he has no chance of winning New Hampshire or the nomination. If he is in the debate you can not make an argument for keeping Johnson out. If Johnson is out then please, oh please, kick Santorum out so I don’t ever have to hear about napkins vs. paper towels.

Jon Huntsman is in the debate despite his poll numbers. I wouldn’t know Huntsman if he ran up and hit me in the head with a shovel. The media seems to want me to know him, but I can’t understand why. The man makes Romney look dynamic, so he really must be doing something wrong. He is a cookie cutter candidate seemingly molded by image consultants. If Jon Huntsman fell at the debate would anyone hear it? Serious, what can anyone say about the man? Once again, if he is in then you can’t keep Johnson out.

Has the media decided that one Libertarian oriented voice is enough this time around? We have more Social Conservatives than we could swing a dead cat at, why not another Libertarian? The media has already decided that Ron Paul can’t win, why not two who can’t win then? Are they worried that some sensible talk about ending the drug war or scaling back the military might resonate if it is coming from more than just crazy old Uncle Ron? Johnson has a record as Governor that Romney wishes he had, so he has the qualifications to be on the stage with the rest of them, even though he has never sold a pizza to anyone.

The debates are a useless waste of time to begin with given their inane, often vapid, questions and formats, but if you are going to have them, then all who qualify should be allowed on the stage. The object of the exercise is supposedly to give the people a chance to evaluate the candidates and decide for themselves who they want to support. Give Johnson the chance and the exposure you have been wasting giving to Santorum and Huntsman then his poll numbers may or may not start to shoot up, but at least we could call that fair. It isn’t the media’s job to pick the winners and losers, despite their over-inflated sense of self importance, that still falls to the people, give us the opportunity to decide for ourselves. LET GARY IN!