. . .and The Second Tier Debate

I’d also like us to live blog the 5:00 p.m. debate featuring the seven candidates that didn’t make the top ten. But I doubt that I will be back from work on time, and the same will be true for most viewers. This adds injury to insult.

The Fox network scheme of breaking the debates into two tiers, the prime time show for the top 10 most popular candidates according to an average of polls, and a non-prime time show for the remaining 7 candidates is just not fair. Let me tell you why after the jump.Most people do not really know whom they want to support at this extremely early stage of the campaign season. They can answer a pollster, but few have been paying attention yet.

The purpose of the debates is to acquaint the public with the candidates and their positions.

For the TV network conducting the debates to artificially create a top tier and a bottom tier may create a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the “cool kids” in prime time get all of the attention, and those who haven’t polled so well as of yet get the aura of “losers.” But the difference in poll numbers between the top tier and the bottom tier is miniscule. Christie made it into the top 10 with 3% of the electorate, while Jindal and Perry missed the cut with only 2%. So only 1% separates the top tier from the bottom tier!

Fox should have hosted three debates–they are a 24 hour news station, with plenty of time in their schedule–randomly sorting the candidates into groups of five or six. That would be a better forum anyway, if the purpose is to hear from candidates in any kind of depth and to see how they interact with each other.

Or, if Fox really wanted to go with the top tier and bottom tier, schedule the two debates so that both groups have the chance to be heard and to pick up viewers. Schedule the top 10 at 9:00 p.m., and the rest of the field at 7:00 p.m. Of course, more people would probably watch the earlier show and be tired of listening by the later debate, so reverse it. Or hold the two on different nights. But don’t deliberately give those lower in the polls an impossible time slot.

One of these candidates might be the best choice and might take off, once he or she gets better known.

Anyway, if you watch the 5:00 p.m. ET debate, please post your comments here as things unfold.