ABC Invites Candidates to Historic Townhall...One question:

[wgadget]

Where is Ron Paul?

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=5021604&page=1

[SLSteven]

Where is Ron Paul?

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=5021604&page=1

Not in the agenda.

[Knightskye]

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and ABC News have invited Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain to participate in a 90-minute, primetime town hall meeting to be broadcast live from Federal Hall in New York City, but the two campaigns said today they do not want the event to be broadcast by only one network.

He wudn't invited. :cool:

[pinkmandy]

Who is Ron Paul?

[slacker921]

and.. where is Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin? They're the nominees for their parties.

Are there any bloggers or journalists willing to question why legitimate candidates are being excluded?

[itshappening]

why isnt Bob Barr being invited! this is an outrage....

[MRoCkEd]

i thought bloomberg wanted to see an indy/3rd in the whitehouse - why not let them come?

[fr33domfightr]

They should include some 3rd party candidates too!!! They could have the Libetarian Party nominee, Constitution Party nominee, Green, Peace & Freedom, etc. Why not give the American people some real choices?? Oh wait, I forgot, ABC didn't donate to those 3rd parties, my bad.

FF

[SnappleLlama]

Ron Paul wasn't invited! Whoa! Who didn't see THIS coming! :)

[AJ Antimony]

Ron Paul wasn't invited because the Dems and Reps have their presumptive nominees. A third party wasn't invited because they aren't polling high enough--none over 10%. Polling for all intents and purposes is the opinion of the American people. Therefore, no third parties are being invited because Americans are too stupid to support anyone other than a Republicrat.

[tnvoter]

theyre projecting Barr to get 3%, if he were invited they'd have to invite Nader as well, the media wouldnt dare do that to their DNC.

[fr33domfightr]

It's funny, ABC will get the PRESUMPTIVE nominees, but not the ACTUAL nominees from 3rd parties.

If Barr wants to get his numbers up, he better start running some National Ads telling people he's running. I'll bet many people may not even know he's running.

Watch for ABC to use old polling data to show Barr (or other candidates) don't have high enough numbers.

On a positive note, on Air America, on Friday, I heard them mention the debates. One person said there should be debates between McCain & Obama. Then the other one said, they should include Bob Barr as well, since he's the Libertarian Party nominee. That's the only other candidate that was mentioned, but I think it's good they at least mentioned someone else. The motives behind suggesting that might be because it was Air America. They'd probably want Barr in there thinking he would pull votes from McCain. I'd prefer anyone that can attempt to break the back of the main 2 parties.

On another positive note, on CNN today I saw some poll numbers of those voting for Obama & McCain. Of the voters for Obama or McCain, each had 11% who would consider voting for someone else, that's 22% total. That's a pretty high percentage. And that's the people that need to be grabbed, if possible, by a third party.


FF

[AJ Antimony]

Watch for ABC to use old polling data to show Barr (or other candidates) don't have high enough numbers.

On another positive note, on CNN today I saw some poll numbers of those voting for Obama & McCain. Of the voters for Obama or McCain, each had 11% who would consider voting for someone else, that's 22% total. That's a pretty high percentage. And that's the people that need to be grabbed, if possible, by a third party.

First, ABC can get away with that if polls for Barr change from like 2% to 3% or something. They won't be able to do that if Barr went from 2% to 10%.

Second, a presidential candidate seeks to grab 100% of the votes, not 22%. But yes, 22% for a third party candidate would be high.

[fr33domfightr]

The other percentages of those polls were felt strongly about their vote for Obama or McCain, like they wouldn't switch. Of course, anyone running for president wants 100% of the vote, but you got to work with what you can get. Those 22% seem to be willing to be gotten. Who knows, if a 3rd party could get that 22%, that might be enough to pull in more. Realistically, a 3rd party probably won't win in 2008. But if they could come in 2nd place, ahead of McCain, that would be substantial. It could set things up for a 3rd party win in 2012. Hope our country can make it that long. :(


FF

[The Only Woj]

anyone find it funny that Obama would prefer something akin to hour-long speeches? go figure he'd want a format where he can say a lot without saying anything, against a guy who certainly can't out-talk him.

[Paulitical Correctness]

Uh, we're not used to this by now? :confused:

[Knightskye]

Uh, we're not used to this by now? :confused:

Do you want to be used to it or do you want to change it? ;)