Member of Presidential Debate Commission Wants Gary Johnson In The Debates

Last week the Commission on Presidential Debates excluded Gary Johnson from the first debate to take place next week.

However, a leading member of the commission wants to see Gary Johnson in the debates.

From the IndyStar:

WASHINGTON — Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson should be allowed to participate in this fall’s debates even if he doesn’t meet the debate commission’s current standard for third-party candidates, Purdue University President Mitch Daniels said Wednesday.

The commission has said candidates need to average 15 percent or higher in national polls, a level Johnson hasn’t met.

But Daniels, who is a member of the Commission on Presidential Debates, wants a more liberal standard this year because “people are so obviously shopping and wishing for some other choice.”

Daniels, a former two-term governor of Indiana who considered running for president in 2012, also said it’s not impossible to imagine the Republican Party “fracturing in some way and reforming” after the election.

Daniels made his comments during and after an event for Purdue University alumni in Washington in which he and debate commission co-chairman Mike McCurry discussed this year’s elections.

There is obvious interest in having a third voice heard in this Presidential election. The commission is ignoring over 60% of Americans who say they want a different voice in the national conversation, but a two-party duopoly will not allow it.