Less than an hour before the Democrats began debating in Nevada tonight, MSNBC was in the Nevada Supreme Court desperately battling for their 1st Amendment right to exclude Dennis Kucinich from the event, in defiance of an earlier district court ruling. I kid you not. Note the basis of the 1st Amendment claim: MSNBC contended that as a private business, it had every right to set criteria for debate admission and exclude candidates accordingly. In other words, limiting the number of voices and choices voters can see on TV is an expression of free speech.
MSNBC won the case. The court ruled that Kucinich could not claim breach of contract on the strength of the invitation he received before the network changed its criteria for participation. So Nevada didn't necessarily endorse the peculiar interpretation of the First Amendment described above, it certainly didn't reject it.
In an ideal country, there would be debates rather than commercials. That would be the only way I could support free air time for politicians, but it would also make the networks or the FCC into gatekeepers with an arbitrary power to exclude candidates. I find the trouble MSNBC went to to keep Kucinich out alarming, not due to any enthusiasm for the Ohio congressman, whose campaign is hopeless, but because that hopelessness is up to each voter to decide for himself, and not for a network to declare unilaterally.
Some of you are bound to say: if the networks can't exclude anyone, how can they keep debates to a manageable format? I'll leave the issue for now with one word: decentralize. You can mull that over for a while until I return to the topic.
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In case you didn't notice, this isn't the first time Kucinich has been excluded from a debate. ABC did the same thing prior to New Hampshire. Apparently, the networks don't see a "compelling news story" in Kucinich, otherwise there would be no ban on him being in the debates. The Dems have their "headliners" in Senators Carpetbagger (Clinton) and Obama, the Republicans have Romney, Huckabee, and "Rudy 9/11!", who's fading faster than Jessica Simpson's movie career.
If Swillary doesn't get the nomination---and I don't think she will, to be honest with you---maybe she can get an acting job after she finishes her current term in the Senate.
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