South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham is the latest Republican hopeful to accuse party leaders of deliberately attempting to shrink the GOP presidential field.
“The RNC should not be in the business of winnowing down primary fields; in fact, the rules specifically forbid it without a vote of the committee,” Graham’s campaign manager, Christian Ferry, wrote in a recent letter to the Republican National Committee.
Ferry’s letter reportedly comes just days after Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told the Washington Examiner the RNC is trying to “clear the field to make it Jeb Bush versus Donald Trump.”
Graham, like Jindal, currently earns less than 1 percent in several national polls of right-leaning voters and failed to make the cut to join either of the two Republican prime-time debates held so far.
“All of the candidates for president bring unique and important qualities to the debate stage. For 11 of those candidates, the main stage debates have given them the opportunity to show those strengths to record-sized audiences,” Ferry wrote. “But each of the candidates in the so-called ‘undercard’ debate offer similar strengths for our party.”
“These are not ‘also ran’ campaigns, and the RNC should stop treating them as such,” he added.
With the third GOP debate fast-approaching and the RNC offering virtually no guidance on the entry criteria, anxiety among bottom-tier contenders like Graham is mounting. Many fear the committee and CNBC, which is hosting the third debate, will eliminate the happy hour event that has previously given long-shot candidates a platform to share their policies.
“Having large viewing audiences hear these candidates’ message is beneficial to our party as a whole,” Ferry wrote Monday.
He continued, “If we have learned anything from the campaign to date, we have learned that it is completely unpredictable and that conventional wisdom is anything but wise [and] to trying to sit here today and predict what will happen two weeks from now, let alone five months from now, is an exercise in futility.”
As noted by Politico, the RNC is unable to establish debate criteria and must instead rely on what influence they may have over the networks hosting each debate. Still, RNC spokesman Sean Spicer expressed doubt following the last debate that CNBC would organize its own “JV” debate.
“I doubt there will be an undercard,” Spicer said at the time. “We need to see where the race stands in a couple weeks and see what’s best for candidates and the party.”
In his letter, Ferry conveyed sympathy for the difficulties faced by debate organizers who are dealing with a massive GOP field. He went on, however, to lambaste the RNC for ignoring a June 11 letter urging the committee to consider splitting the candidates into two separate, and shorter debates, at random.
“Never has the RNC commented on that potential solution,” Ferry wrote.
“If you accept the premise that the RNC has no say in the debate criteria, then the RNC should at least be advocating for the most inclusive rules ever — not just in terms of the number of candidates in the debate, but in terms of the percentage of the field given an opportunity,” he added.
The RNC did not return the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
