Who should be included in the Democrat's debates prior to the Iowa Caucus?

[°Leprechaun]

Gravel was excluded in the Philly debate.
What a shame.
I am voting to include all of them.

[°Leprechaun]

...and they should get EQUAL time, too.

[minionofmidas]

Only Gravel and Kucinich.

[°Leprechaun]

Only Gravel and Kucinich.

Well, they are certainly the best of the bunch...

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It's time to start winnowing the candidates down to make the debates more relevant, Anyone who can't manage to poll above the MoE in an Iowa poll needs to be excluded this close to the caucus from an Iowa debate, so just the top 5: Biden, Clinton, Edwards, Obama, and Richardson should be in any Iowa debates until then.

[Frodo]

Only the top three -Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards. 

[Boris]

Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Gravel

[Meeker]

If you're polling below the margin of error you're allowed to attend BUT you must wear a gorilla suit and speak in tongues.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

NBC's rules looked reasonable to me. You needed just one of:
Raise $1 million
Poll 5% in either Iowa or New Hampshire
Have a total of 14 campaign visits to Iowa and New Hampshire.

[7,052,770]

All 8.

[Ebowed]

All of the candidates, obviously.  Why would guesswork polling, which we like to deride all the time in the form of exit polls, determine whether a candidate can have the chance to discuss his views?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Why would guesswork polling, which we like to deride all the time in the form of exit polls, determine whether a candidate can have the chance to discuss his views?

Eight is too many candidates for there to be a meaningful debate.  I agree that early on the debate needed to be inclusive so as to give the darkest horses a chance, but we now have just two months till the first substantive votes occur.  It's time to start winnowing the field down somewhat.  Five is a bit too many for one debate as well, but I'm only willing to trim things down to those campaigners doing better than the MoE or 5% whichever is lower.  Maybe 6 if you accept that Kucinich's result in the latest Rassmunsen New Hampshire poll wasn't a statistical fluke.  There's zero chance that either Dodd or Gravel can pull an upset now.  All that including all Seven Dwarfs in each debate with Snow White does is ensure that she has less time to reveal that she might be the Wicked Witch instead.

[Јas]

Why would guesswork polling, which we like to deride all the time in the form of exit polls, determine whether a candidate can have the chance to discuss his views?

Eight is too many candidates for there to be a meaningful debate.  I agree that early on the debate needed to be inclusive so as to give the darkest horses a chance, but we now have just two months till the first substantive votes occur.  It's time to start winnowing the field down somewhat.  Five is a bit too many for one debate as well, but I'm only willing to trim things down to those campaigners doing better than the MoE or 5% whichever is lower.  Maybe 6 if you accept that Kucinich's result in the latest Rassmunsen New Hampshire poll wasn't a statistical fluke.  There's zero chance that either Dodd or Gravel can pull an upset now.  All that including all Seven Dwarfs in each debate with Snow White does is ensure that she has less time to reveal that she might be the Wicked Witch instead.

Surely it should be the people who should be 'winnowing the field' and not NBC or some other media outlet. The field will naturally find itself worn down as time passes with candidates dropping out, why the need to push them?

The nomination doesn't have to be decided until the convention which is obviously a great deal of time and many primaries away. Obviously if the weaker candidates get limited/no support in the early states, they'll drop out of their own accord in response to the voters' decisions.

[Ebowed]

Yeah, Jas is exactly right.  I thought the caucuses and primaries were meant to be eliminating the weaker candidates, instead of the media outlets which host debates deciding who gets to stay in and who has to go.

[Joe Biden 2020]

Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Richardson, Biden, Dodd

Leave the elf (Kucinich) and the eskimo (Gravel) out.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

...and they should get EQUAL time, too.

Absolutely - this is what hurt Kucinich - the only things he was able to get in was that he opposed nuclear power, which hurts his standing w/ a lot of environmental Dems. that I know (who actually really like him) and that he saw a UFO - quite unfair to him, compared to Clinton (although she needed less time, b/c she screwed herself up) - although Dodd got a fair amount of time.

[Hash]

Gravel was excluded in the Philly debate.
What a shame.
I am voting to include all of them.

[Michael Z]

Just Gravel.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Richardson, Biden, Dodd

Leave the elf (Kucinich) and the eskimo (Gravel) out.

Right now the elf has more poll support than does Dodd, and I say that as someone who thinks Dodd would be one of the better choices.

Yeah, Jas is exactly right.  I thought the caucuses and primaries were meant to be eliminating the weaker candidates, instead of the media outlets which host debates deciding who gets to stay in and who has to go.

Debates are not meant to be a means of subsidizing candidates who are unable to mobilize support on their own.  Polls, so long as the threshold is set very low, and not even used as a threshold initially, are a perfectly reasonable way of doing so.  There's less than two months left.  A candidate who hasn't been able to register a pulse in the polls after all these months of campaigning are not going to magically become a factor by continuing to clutter up the debate stages.

[Јas]

Yeah, Jas is exactly right.  I thought the caucuses and primaries were meant to be eliminating the weaker candidates, instead of the media outlets which host debates deciding who gets to stay in and who has to go.

Debates are not meant to be a means of subsidizing candidates who are unable to mobilize support on their own.  Polls, so long as the threshold is set very low, and not even used as a threshold initially, are a perfectly reasonable way of doing so.  There's less than two months left.  A candidate who hasn't been able to register a pulse in the polls after all these months of campaigning are not going to magically become a factor by continuing to clutter up the debate stages.

Yes, there are two months left...until the primary process begins, not ends.

Why should the debates not continue beyond Iowa, NH, et al?
What's wrong with maximising debate?

The system was not set up to decide a winner (or eliminate losers) on the basis of polling data, but on the basis of people turning out and voting. What you suggest is the thin end of the wedge on the way to abandoning elections and deciding office holding on the basis of polling samples instead.

[© tweed]

Only Gravel and Kucinich.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Why should the debates not continue beyond Iowa, NH, et al?
What's wrong with maximising debate?

Eight candidates and 90 minutes is not a debate, it's a sound bite festival is what it is.  That's the problem.  Even whittled down to five candidates, that's less than 20 minutes each.  Anyone who thinks that even if included in every remaining debate until they run out of debates that the three bottom feeders Kucinich, Dodd, or Gravel have any chance of getting the Democratic nomination is deluding themselves.  Even Richardson and Biden look very doubtful, but it's too early to pull the plug on them, as a small chance is not no chance.

Because she's the front runner, Hillary is the clear beneficiary of the crowded stage you favor.  She has less time to make a mistake, and those who might be able to beat her have less time to impress the voters that they are better than the bandwagon.

[Ebowed]

Actually, Hillary (and Edwards) have notoriously supported efforts to exclude less popular candidates from the debates.  So they can get more airtime.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Well, I can understand Edwards wanting to do so, but Hillary must love the sound of her voice if she wants to narrow the debates down to fewer candidates.

[Beet]

Hmm, Ernest makes a good point about being able to have more in-depth debates with fewer candidates. The problem in this case seems to be that three candidates with high name recognition overwhelmed other candidates from the beginning, based solely on their star power. This caused a couple of serious Dems (Warner, Bayh) to forsake the race (in Bayh's case certainly, in Warner's case, perhaps) before we even got to the first debate; on the other hand it provided no incentive for the 'just running to run' candidates to drop out. For the Republican side, there was a similiar dynamic to a slightly lesser degree, with the well-known Giuliani and McCain starting out at the top. Unfortunately, it's hard to think of a solution to this problem.