File this one in your OOPS File and the Get Ready For The Political Firestorm File:
Democrats John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton consider themselves among the top presidential candidates.
They were caught by Fox News microphones discussing their desire to limit future joint appearances to exclude some lower rivals after a forum in Detroit Thursday.
Edwards says, “We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group.”
Clinton agrees, saying, “We’ve got to cut the number” and “they’re not serious.” She also says that she thought their campaigns had already tried to limit the debates and say, “We’ve gotta get back to it.”
In a sense, they’re correct. In every campaign there are the “not serious” candidates — but they are perceived as not being serious to people who hold certain beliefs. To some other voters, they are quite serious since they offer a non-mainstream, non-conventional wisdom outlook.
The problem with cutting them out from debates — even if it’s done with political CYA cover story — is that in the end the candidates that cut out the candidates lose in both their prestige (it gets media coverage) and in support (those who supported the “not serious” candidates would rather stay home on election day then vote for the “serious” guy/lady who cut them out).
Also, remember Ronald Reagan championing a debate including all candidates in New Hampshire in 1980? A certain candidate named George Bush had been in the lead until then — and the moment when a red-faced Reagan demanded his mike be open greatly helped his campaign. WATCH IT HERE. Note the other candidates applaud an angry Reagan (which means their supporters were more likely to go along with Reagan, rather than be furious that he was exclusionary).
NOTE TO EDWARDS AND CLINTON: Don’t you know by now that it’s unwise to say in private near a mike what you wouldn’t say in public? That’s 21st Century Politics 1.01
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.