How can we rewrite the rules to get Carly Fiorina onstage?
Choosing which Republican presidential candidates make it out of the clown car and onto the debate stage by looking at how they rank in national polling is a blow to the importance of the early primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire. And since the importance of the early primaries is a treasured by politicians in those states, it's not surprising that a group of New Hampshire Republicans is
calling on the Republican National Committee and Fox News to change the criteria for getting into the debate, or even changing the debate format itself:
The letter, signed by 56 Republicans, including former governors, members of Congress, state legislators and delegates, warns that the current criteria threatens to “undermine the very nature of our process and the valuable service that states like New Hampshire provide to voters across the country." [...]
“The first televised debate of the 2016 election cycle should place all candidates on even footing and allow each to make their case directly to the voters and your viewers,” the letter states. “Anything less would prematurely suppress the candidate field, and arbitrarily elevate candidates who benefit from preliminary notoriety and fundraising.”
("Preliminary notoriety," eh? Hi there, Donald Trump!)
The New Hampshire Republicans have a suggestion: They want Fox to go one step past CNN's plan for back-to-back varsity and JV debates, proposing instead back-to-back debates with the top six candidates split between the two debates, so that neither is more important and Carly Fiorina and Lindsey Graham have their chance to be onstage with Jeb Bush or Scott Walker (but not necessarily both of them).