The announcement that Fox News will be limiting the first Republican primary debates to the ten candidates with the highest polling average at the time is not sitting well with candidates who are pretty sure they won't be making
even that generous cut.
Likely presidential hopeful Rick Santorum criticized Fox News on Thursday for instituting what he described as "arbitrary" debate criteria. [...]
"The idea that a national poll has any relationship to the viability of a candidate -- ask Rudy Giuliani that, ask Phil Gramm that," the former Pennsylvania senator told National Journal after a speech at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in Oklahoma City.
He may have a point. After all, he won Iowa last time around and
nobody, not even Rick Santorum, thought he was a viable national candidate!
Santorum said he was "probably the best person to comment on this," because he had only 4 percent in national polls in January 2012, and won the Iowa caucuses anyway. "I don't know if I was last in the polls, but I was pretty close to last," he said.
That's the spirit. We can't just have the top ten candidates up on that stage, Fox, we need the ridiculous, absurd, insulting, absolutely batshit crazy candidates up there too. Because when Iowa rolls around, they're the ones most likely to win.