Exclusive: GOP campaigns gather to plot revolt against RNC debates

Republicans are turning on the RNC now. No political party can survive this much dysfunction and chaos. I am loving this.

Republican presidential campaigns are planning to gather in Washington, D.C., on Sunday evening to plot how to alter their party’s messy debate process — and how to remove power from the hands of the Republican National Committee.

Not invited to the meeting: Anyone from the RNC, which many candidates have openly criticized in the hours since Wednesday’s CNBC debate in Boulder, Colorado — a chaotic, disorganized affair that was widely panned by political observers.

On Thursday, many of the campaigns told POLITICO that the RNC, which has taken a greater role in the 2016 debate process than in previous election cycles, had failed to take their concerns into account. It was time, top aides to at least half a dozen of the candidates agreed, to begin discussing among themselves how the next debates should be structured and not leave it up to the RNC and television networks.

The gathering is being organized by advisers to the campaigns of Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Bobby Jindal, and Lindsey Graham, according to multiple sources involved with the planning for the meeting. Others who are expected to attend, organizers say, are representatives for Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum. The planners are also reaching out to other Republican candidates.

Spokespersons for the RNC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“I think the campaigns have a number of concerns and they have a right to talk about that amongst themselves,” said Christian Ferry, Graham’s campaign manager. The objective, Ferry said, was to “find out what works best for us as a group.”

Figuring that out could be contentious, as each campaign has a number of different complaints about the process. Some — such as Bush and Paul — have griped about unequal speaking time. Others have complained bitterly about how polling is used to determine who qualifies for the primetime and undercard debates. Some have insisted on giving opening and closing statements, despite the networks' desire to have the candidates spend as much time as possible clashing with each other on stage.

Jindal, who polls better in Iowa than he does nationally, has argued that criteria for determining who qualifies for debates should be based on early state polling and not just national surveys.

“Our continuous complaint is candidate exclusion and the delusional debate polling criteria. It's unacceptable,” said Gail Gitcho, a Jindal spokeswoman. “Maybe this meeting will change that, maybe it won't. But we aren't going to shut up about it.”

Graham’s campaign has argued that there should be two debates — with two groups of seven or eight candidates picked at random.

Carson said on Thursday that he had asked his staff to contact other campaigns to propose format changes, without sharing specifically what he thinks they should be.

“It’s not about me and gotcha questions. It’s about the American people and whether they have the right to hear what we think,” Carson said before an event at Colorado Christian University. “The whole format was just craziness … You got to be really bad for the whole crowd to boo you."

"I think the families need to get together here, because these debates as structured by the RNC are not helping the party," Carson campaign manager Barry Bennett told the Washington Examiner. "There's not enough time to talk about your plans, there's no presentation. It's just a slugfest. All we do is change moderators. And the trendline is horrific. So I think there needs to be wholesale change here."

Rubio, largely considered the standout of Wednesday's debate, said the questions from CNBC's moderators "became irritating" as the night wore on.

"I think the bigger frustration you saw is that all those candidates onstage had prepared for a substantive debate. Everyone was ready to talk about trade policy and the debt and tax policies," Rubio said on Fox News. "And we're ready for that, everybody was. And then, you got questions that everyone got, which were clearly designed to get us to fight against each other or get us to say something embarrassing about us and then get us to react."

"The campaigns are not going to allow the networks to control this process," Huckabee told Fox Business host Lou Dobbs on Thursday night.

Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly demanded that the debates last no longer than two hours. On Wednesday night, he even boasted of muscling CNBC into changing the format for the third debate. "Everybody said it was going to be three hours, three and a half, including them, and in about two minutes I renegotiated it so we can get the hell out of here," he said. "Not bad."

Sources at Fox Business Network, the hosts of the next GOP debate on Nov. 10, said that as of Thursday afternoon they hadn't heard from any campaigns or the RNC about their debate format, but that they weren't concerned. They pointed to positive reviews of the first GOP debate, hosted by Fox News, and noted that though it's Fox Business' first debate, viewers and the candidates can expect the same results next month with moderators Maria Bartiromo and Neil Cavuto.



Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/gop-campaigns-rnc-debates-215371#ixzz3q0mCFvEJ

 

It doesn't bother any of you that the RNC is being rejected for the Republican debates? Funny, that kind of development would seem like it would be a powerful message. Hum? Curiouser and curiouser this disintegrating GOP.

 

For me it has more to do with time for a change from the same ole same ole
establishment corruptness and dis function in DC time to clean house and stop this out of control spending
and get it under control, The bear has been poked one too many times and is pissed.

And Carl rove and his crony's and the like may as well take the next train home cause it will only end bad for them.
And the RNC better take notice and get on board or be left behind as well.

Speaking for myself the more they spend on negative ad's against non establishment candidates the more their gonna looooooooooozzzzzze.

2012 & 2014 was just the beginning WE THE PEOPLE will be heard.

 

You do realize that you are talking about the Republican Party right? I can't disagree with your assessment of the corruption of the GOP establishment and have been saying so for years. The weight of its own hypocrisy had to eventually collapse in on the GOP.

The rise of the Tea Party types was originally a way to direct anger at Democrats to the advantage of the establishment GOP. And that worked initially, but that anger that is so easily brought to the surface is now directed at the GOP itself. The fracturing is the thing. The RNC seems desperate to keep all the pieces together because when they fail, and fail they will, the Right-wing will be nothing more than the Modern day Whigs.

 

I know exactly whom I am talking about.

You think the Tea party was just about directing anger at the Democrats?

Democrats lost the 2016 election 3 years ago.

 

Yes, I'm sure the party that is tearing itself apart is going to suddenly pull it's act together and pull out a win at the last moment. Right?! Wishful thinking isn't going to help you but I guess it is all you have. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Truer words were never spoken.

 

it's = it is. The possessive is its. OOPS!

 

A common grammar mistake and nothing to be ashamed of. I have to think long and hard rather to use effect or affect.

 

I guess when your party is in chaos and falling apart, you need a win. Good for you butt rimmer.

 

"as easily the highest educated person in this forum" yet this is what you stoop to?