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Comment by KuiN | Hacker News Reader

You qualify for the debate by getting the right number of donors? Wow ...

It seems reasonable to me, for an early debate, assuming the minimum qualifying donation is small (like $1 or $5).

For an early debate, I think one of the main goals would be to give exposure to "deserving" candidates who don't necessarily already have it. Polling isn't good for that since it will exclude anyone people haven't already heard of. But the question becomes what is "deserving" and how do you measure it?

It's not like counting donors is perfect, but what is? And it has some things going for it:

1. Talk is just talk. If you can get a decent number of people who don't personally know you to support you with at least a few bucks, you've got some kind of appeal.

2. There are already a lot of laws, reporting rules, etc. around campaign donations that you can piggyback off of. That is, the campaigns are already tracking this stuff very carefully and, if they cheat the numbers, are risking something a lot worse than being left out of a debate.

Quadratic voting. You can give as many "pushes" to a candidate as you like, but the first costs $1, the second $2, the third $9, the fourth $16... At the end of the game everyone shares in the spoils equally so people get some of their money back.

It's to make sure "supporters" are actual supporters who put their money where their mouth is.

That supposes "supporters" have disposable income, and don't support a candidate in other ways like donating time, or canvassing.

The disposable income can be as little as $1 (though you also need a credit card and access to a computer with Internet), so it's not too exclusionary.

You can also qualify by getting 1%+ support in 3+ "approved" polls.

>though you also need a credit card and access to a computer with Internet), so it's not too exclusionary

You'd be surprised

How would you propose a network select candidates for a debate?

I thought traditionally it was polling numbers. But maybe that was just the RNC clown car from 2016...

The DNC is using two criteria for qualifying for the debates. One is the traditional polling above 1% in three separate recognized polls. The other is a minimum number of donors (65k), with a minimum of 200 in each of 20 different states.

Meeting either criteria qualifies a candidate for the debate, and should the field of qualifying candidates grow to more than twenty (gods forbid) priority is given to candidates that meet both and then by polling average.

65k donors doesn't seem like a lot especially since there's no minimum contribution. So raising $65,000 can put you on the DNC debate stage regardless of how you poll?

A GoFundMe could raise more than that.

How easy do you imagine it is to get that many people to put their name on a list saying they want you for president?

Exponentially easier than polling 1% nationally.

The comparison was to a random GoFundMe, not national polling. Besides, the field is limited to 20. A candidate may still have to meet the polling threshold depending on how the field does.

Polling numbers are great for a field of a half-dozen candidates, but much harder for a field of 20, where the average is 5%. How can you even trust the polls then?

As a Democrat, I'm okay with showing a minimum number of individual donors. It shows real interest in the candidate.

> the RNC clown car from 2016

As opposed to the DNC clown car from 2016 where everything about the primaries was pre-cooked by DNC insiders and their media helpers?

I don't understand how any rational person can claim moral high ground for either party.

> where everything about the primaries was pre-cooked

One, maybe two things, ISTR, no?

There was no realistic chance that Bernie is any other candidate was going to get the nomination at the convention once the superdelegates were pinned down.

That was settled well before the primaries were done, so if that's just one thing, it's enough. You don't even need to get to "two things" like previewing questions with the media for the debates, or purging dissenters from the DNC leadership, for example.

ISTR one of the things was, "Hillary will win."

Networks don't select candidates for the debates on their own, the parties at the main drivers; the DNC drove the single-tier big-stage setup for it's 2020 debates, including the ability to qualify by number of unique donors; the RNC drove the qualifications for, and two-tier “grown ups” vs. “kids table” format for it's 2016 debates.

Unique donors across (I believe?) all 50 states. It's to allow presumably grassroots candidates to achieve access. You can also qualify the normal way of scoring above some small percentage in national polls.

The DNC doesn't require donors from all 50 states, but it does require a healthy diversity of states. I think it is 200 unique donors from 20 different states.

If it’s only $65K and 200 people that’s a low bar. That’s well within range of a determined troll to get a podium on live TV.

200 from each of 20 states.

Why should anything about this be designed to exclude "trolls"? Last time repubs got a troll, and he won the whole thing.

Ha! For the record I’m all for it. I find the entire election procrsss highly entertaining.

The funniest thing I heard on the subject was the suggestion to nominate Trump as a Democrat so he qualifies for their primary debates and can take on all of them at once.

Not dollars, 65k unique donors. And 200 from each of 20 states.

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