It’s a mistake for CNN to exclude former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina from the next Republican Party primary debate, National Review’s editorial board said Tuesday morning.
Only 10 candidates will be permitted to participate in CNN’s top-tier debate on Sept. 16 at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., and only those polling at the top will be included.
Using polling data from mid-July, CNN concluded in August that Fiorina failed to make the cut. However, since her Aug. 6 breakout performance in the so-called “kid’s table” debate hosted by Fox News, the 2016 Republican presidential candidate’s numbers have increased dramatically.
She currently polls at 5.8 percent, right behind Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former reality TV star Donald Trump, according to RealClearPolitics’ poling average.
Yet, Fiorina, the sole female voice in the GOP’s 17-plus-person field, still doesn’t make the grade when it comes to CNN’s top-tier debate in September. For National Review, this is unacceptable.
“Using the polls to cull the large field of Republican candidates for debates is a mistake, since it did not need to be done,” the conservative publication’s editors wrote. “The networks could have randomly selected two samples from the field instead of holding first-tier and second-tier debates.”
“If polls have to be used, though, they should at least be recent polls. We know that public opinion about the candidates has changed since July: that the pattern of results in more recent polls differs from the pattern of polls then because opinion has changed, and not because of chance,” they added.
“There’s no way to defend keeping her out of the network’s Sept. 16 debate because she was not in the top ten two months beforehand,” they wrote. “So the main counterargument being made is that it would be unfair to change the rules a few weeks before the debate. But fairness to voters should matter more than fairness to candidates, and voters appear to prefer Fiorina to whichever candidate she would be bumping.”
National Review’s editor-in-chief, Rich Lowry, suggested a solution for the cable news network.
“There is an easy fix for this, which is for CNN to acknowledge its criteria have played out differently than it expected and to put more emphasis on recent polling,” he wrote in a separate article published Tuesday. “Other candidates on the bubble will cry foul, but who can object to a debate that features the current top candidates now, rather than the top candidates from five weeks ago?”
Acknowledging that the GOP’s crowded field poses a legitimate problem for networks, Lowry contends that it is nevertheless unfair for CNN to ignore Fiorina’s recent polling success.
“What is manifestly unfair is to watch a candidate rise from the very low single digits into more serious contention as she begins to catch on with voters, and then leave her out of the main event regardless. That is what will happen to Carly Fiorina, unless CNN relents,” he wrote.
National Review is not alone in imploring CNN to reconsider Fiorina’s role in the upcoming debate. Ben Carson’s campaign team agrees that her likely absence is unfair.
“We don’t like how far back [CNN is] going in the polls,” campaign manager Barry Bennett said. “We think it’s ridiculous that Carly Fiorina isn’t on the debate. She’s what, fifth? She should be on the main debate stage. Why does anyone care where someone was in presidential preference polls [three months ago]?”
Support for Fiorina’s candidacy has been extremely heartening, a spokeswoman for her campaign told the Washington Examiner’s media desk.
“The outpouring of support from conservative leaders and activists around the county has been overwhelming. We agree – Carly has earned a spot at that debate!” Anna Epstein said Tuesday afternoon.
As of last week, CNN made it clear that his has no plans to adjust the criteria used for identifying qualifying candidates.
“Our criteria are totally appropriate and we have been absolutely transparent about them throughout. If the Fiorina campaign had an issue with them they could have raised it when we published them in May. They did not,” a spokeswoman for the cable network told the Wall Street Journal.
“Revising the criteria on the eve of the debate at the demand of and solely for the benefit of one particular candidate is not something we have done in the past, and we will not do it now,” the spokeswoman added.
