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Wednesday, August 05, 2015

Polling for prime time. At least they had the sensibility if not the hubris, in not making it pay per view.

CBS reporting, with an image there showing what a Cecil B. DeMille epic film's cast of thousands resembles.

By Jake Miller CBS News August 4, 2015, 6:05 PM
Fox News announces participants in first 2016 GOP debate


Republican presidential candidates former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Dr. Ben Carson, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former CEO Hewlett-Packard Carly Fiorina, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (SC), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former New York Gov. George Pataki, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (PA), Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker stand on the stage prior to the Voters First Presidential Forum at Saint Anselm College August 3, 2015 in Manchester, New Hampshire.
[image caption - photo by Darren McCollester, Getty Images]

Fox News has determined which Republican presidential candidates will participate in the GOP's first primetime primary debate on Thursday.

The ten candidates who made the cut, Fox announced Tuesday, are businessman Donald Trump (with a polling average of 23.4 percent), former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (12.0 percent), Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (10.2 percent), former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (6.6 percent), retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson (5.8 percent), Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (5.4 percent), Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (5.4 percent), Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (4.8 percent), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (3.4 percent), and Ohio Gov. John Kasich (3.2 percent).

That means that seven Republican contenders will be relegated to a [not ready for prime time] secondary debate - a one-hour event scheduled for 5 p.m. Thursday, ahead of the primetime debate, a two-hour event scheduled or 9 p.m.

The candidates in the second-tier debate will be former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (1.8 percent), former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (1.4 percent), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (1.4 percent), former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina (1.3 percent), South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (0.7 percent), former New York Gov. George Pataki (0.6 percent), and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore (0.2 percent).

The candidates had an obvious incentive to vault themselves into the primetime debate: in such a crowded field, a primetime debate can give contenders a high-profile opportunity to emerge from the pack with a strong performance. The candidates relegated to the earlier forum will have an opportunity to make their case, but the ratings for the primetime event are expected to be far higher.

Fox News made the cut based on an average of five recent national polls of the GOP primary. Included in the average were the latest surveys from Fox News, CBS News, Bloomberg News, Monmouth University, and Quinnipiac University.

And will the warm-up act steal the show? Not likely with that many below 1% attendees. Obviously, "the 1%" has a different meaning in this context.

While expecting to miss both events, it has been true in the past that Gary Gross does excellent live blogging and analysis, fair and balanced wherever observing a range of Republicans only, with each fending against the others for gaining voter appeal for their specific ideas and presentations.

A caveat - Of course the quality of content can only be as good as the package of issue questions which event moderators feed the participants. It is FOX.

However the range of issue ideas gets presented and analyzed by the two sets of GOP candidates, I look forward in hope that Gary will again watch and report.

UPDATE: Just eyeballing the percentages, w/o recourse to a calculator, do those percentages add up even near to 100%?

If one category was "None of the above," and that got a percentage to make the top 10 and bump Kasich to the second tier, then properly there should be an empty lectern in the top 10.

Or that's how I'd do it, but this is FOX so it is as it is.

But, wow, Trump besting numbers 2 and 3 together, in polling percentage.

That is a scary sample of the GOP pulse in our nation, or seemingly so. Hurricane Donald. Winds at damaging speeds so nail the lecterns down, FOX. Or is he just bum-of-the-month number one, as with the Romney show last cycle? It is early in the process and Jeb! is the one with the piles of money.