Politico.com reports that Robert Sarvis, Libertarian candidate for Governor of Virginia, will be excluded from the final debate in the Virginia Governor’s race.
WDBJ7, the CBS affiliate organizing the Oct. 24 debate on the campus of Virginia Tech, announced late Thursday that Robert Sarvis has fallen just short of the 10 percent threshold for a third candidate to get on stage.
“As of this date, the third party candidate is polling at 9.0% based on the averages on realclearpolitics.com and would, therefore, not meet the guidelines agreed upon by the campaigns,” emailed Kelly Zuber, the station’s news director.
Politico notes that
With both major candidates viewed more unfavorably than favorably, the libertarian option has fared well among voters who don’t want to pick between “the lesser of two evils.” Sarvis received 12 percent in a three-way POLITICO poll conducted over the weekend of likely voters, while Democrat Terry McAuliffe was at 44 percent and Cuccinelli 35 percent.
Full story @ http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/virginia-governor-debate-robert-sarvis-libertarian-98161.html#ixzz2hMmOOODL
Maybe he’s been busy with media that get larger audiences. Can’t blame him for that one.
I was told by someone from the Sarvis campaign to send in five questions for Sarvis to answer. I sent the five questions on October 3. I have not yet received a response.
The duopolists are running scared. And they should be.
A majority of states that had gubernatorial, US Senate, or US House-at-large election debates in 2010, did invite at least one minor party or independent candidates into debates with both major party opponents. The Sarvis campaign, and everyone in Virginia, should educate the media about this. Virginia is not typical. The list by state for 2010 is in the Nov. 1 2010 print issue of BAN.
Is anyone really surprised by this? Minor party and independent candidates are usually shut out of debates. Sure, they get in debates with their major party opponents once in a while in some states, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
McAuliffe and Cuccinelli are both intellectual cowards for not debating Sarvis. Nobody should vote for either of them for this reason alone. Unfortunately, most of their supporters either will not know about this, or they will not care if they do know (many will even agree that they should not debate Sarvis), or they will know and care, but will “hold their nose” and vote for whom they perceive to be the “lesser of two evils” anyway.
Paulie, if you look at Sarvis’ response to not getting invited, and read the debate criteria carefully from a couple weeks before the October 10th deadline and then after they said he didn’t reach the mark, it seems that at first they had their choice, but then Cuccinelli was upset with the standard and signed off on a new agreement stating that it had to be a 3 week average. Maybe the TV station had some wiggle room with what polls they could include in the average, but overall it wasn’t their fault the criteria changed.
At the same time though, the news station could always simply say “fine, have your debate, we just won’t televise it” and I would greatly applaud this action. They caved in to pressure and a corrupt bargain between McAuliffe and Cuccinelli, rather than standing up for an informed electorate.
Sounds like CYA boilerplate. Comments on that BAN blog post point out that they had the choice of which polls to use and could have went either way, so the blame does lie with the TV station.
The TV station automated response to people who contact them implies that the TV station thinks Sarvis is getting a bad deal, but it says the major party candidates set the standard and there is nothing the TV station can do about it. See ballot access news for the exact wording if you haven’t already got the same canned response.
The only thing the suits will understand is money — like not getting any advertisers as a result of the exclusion.
The difficulty would be finding out who the advertisers will be in advance.
And if there is Virginia Tech money involved, I would like to see a class-action suit from Libertarians to get their portion of those monies refunded.
Infiltrate the audience and hold up “Where’s Sarvis?” signs as the debate begins. Nothing else, just politeness.
By the way, this makes me angry, and I’m going to express that anger by giving $100 to the Sarvis campaign.
I encourage others to do the same. I hope Sarvis can say “My supporters were so mad about this, they gave me a bunch of money.”
This debate is now a campaign contribution to the McAuliffe and Cucc. campaigns. The contribution is being made by CBS and Virginia Tech.
I don’t know about CBS, but it’s probably illegal for Virginia Tech to do that.
Maybe a blessing in disguise 🙂
On the bright side, Sarvis’s continued exclusion has generated a lot of media coverage here in Virginia.
Richard, I bet several of those remaining 15 states probably didn’t have any minor party candidates on the ballot, either!
I just e-mailed the TV station to let them know that in 2010, there were 40 states that held general election debates for candidates for Governor, US Senator, or US House-at-Large. And in 25 of those states there were debates in which minor party or independent candidates for those offices were included in at least one debate. Most of the minor party or independent candidates who were included in 2010 debates were nowhere near 10% in polls. Virginia’s standards for debate inclusion are sharply at deviance with most other states.
Good idea.
Nice email!
@Paulie You’re right, we shouldn’t let them forget about this rotten deal anytime soon. I’m glad to see that my fellow Sarvis supporters are spreading the word on Cuccinelli’s and McAuliffe’s Facebook pages.
rather then complain… make a statement… we shall reach deep into our pockets and spend our coin to put tv and radio adds out.
head over to http://www.RobertSarvis.com and add your cash to the pile that is going to be spent on adds.
Debates should be mandatory for all candidates. Could any other person get a job and not have to go to a job interview?
I sent this email to Kelly Zuber at WDBJ: “I am disappointed in your exclusion of Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis from your sponsored debate. He would have added much to the discussion and you will be surprised at how many votes he is going to receive in November. The times are changing. You need to catch up.”
He could also do like Badnarik did and show up and attempt to debate anyway. It would be good publicity.
Then being in the last debate probably would not have made a huge difference. But do bombard them with protests about it anyway – not because it will change their mind, but just to punish them for their perfidy.
?No, Paulie, he has not been allowed in any of the debates.
Has he been included in past debates?
Pathetic.
I think Rob Sarvis may still do surprisingly well in the election results. He has gove over 8,000 likes on his Facebook page and raised over $8,000 in a money bomb in the last 2 days. I think the last debate between only the Democrat and Republican will cause even more people to not want to vote for either of them.
@Rick, That is an outrage. I’d not be surprised to find that a Republican firm commissioned a biased poll in an effort to bring Sarvis’s average down just enough to ensure he was excluded from the debate.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that Sarvis’s two opponents in this race got to decide the criteria for including him in the debate. Talk about conflicts of interest.
The house always wins.
@Jill Thanks for your concern, but I’m sure that the station has already gotten bombarded with phone calls, emails, facebook and twitter postings demanding that Sarvis be included in the debate. Don’t take my word for it, just look at the station’s Facebook wall: https://www.facebook.com/wdbj7
Unfortunately, I fear that this bombardment may have contributed to Sarvis’s continued exclusion from the debate since the suits at the station might have gotten sick and tired of hearing from us complaining about his exclusion in the first place. That and some arm twisting on behalf of Ken Cuccinelli.
Thanks for posting this, Gene.
There’s contact information for Kelly Zuber, the WDBJ News Director who was quoted in the Politico story, on the station’s website @ http://www.wdbj7.com/about/contact-us.
@Dave According to the CBS affiliate hosting the debate, even if Sarvis’s poll numbers improve over the next two weeks leading up to the debate, he’s still not invited! What a bunch of BS!
Source: http://www.wdbj7.com/news/local/libertarian-candidate-wont-be-included-in-final-virginia-governors-race-debate/-/20128466/22373622/-/13detac/-/index.html
Disgusting! I thought he had al least 12-15% in the polls? Just shows the hack D’s and R’s could care less about democracy. Only their own hides do they care about!
I wonder if a barrage of phone calls, emails and letters to that CBS affiliate would make a difference? I’d be willing to call and ask for the Libertarian to be in the debate. Can anyone find contact info for us? If we make enough noise, just maybe they’ll invite him.
It’s a damn shame this happened. More than that, it’s an outrage. I think had Sarvis been in the debate, the late introduction of him to many Virginians who have not been following the race would have been a major boost to his campaign, especially since people by and large hate the other candidates. Sarvis would have pretty much been guaranteed a surge of some support. Now however I expect his numbers to decline. Hopefully he can get at least 5%, but with these exclusion tactics I’d not be surprised if he fell further.
The debate is the 24th though. I wonder, if a few more polls come out before than and show Sarvis above 10 and therefore boost his poll average, will he then be invited? Or was this the cut off date?