May 11, 2007
Cox To FOX: Why Not Go To 11?
In the crowded 2008 GOP primary field, it's one thing to be considered the long-shot or dark-horse candidate. It's quite another to be the invisible man. But after his second exclusion from a nationally televised primary debate, John Cox is taking matters into his own hands.
Taking a page out of Ralph Nader's playbook, the Illinois businessman lodged a formal complaint yesterday against FOX News Channel and the South Carolina Republican Party, sponsors of next week's "first-in-the-South" GOP debate. Like last week's event hosted by MSNBC in California, the stage at next week's GOP debate in South Carolina will be filled with 10 presidential hopefuls, but not Cox, the first Republican to actually declare his candidacy in the '08 race (he filed with the FEC in February 2006) and the only one on the South Carolina ballot who won't be there.
The suit aimed to force the debate sponsors to either include Cox or cancel the event. But this morning, AP reports that U.S. District Judge Joe Anderson denied Cox's plea, ruling that state law allows party leaders to choose who gets to participate in political debates.
Cox's complaint alleged that, in selecting which candidates would get to participate in the debate, the debate sponsors deliberately used "criteria that allowed their chosen 10 to participate while excluding Cox." Specifically, the campaign claims that FNC and the S.C. GOP scrapped their original plan to base debate invitations on various polls leading up to the registration deadline and instead used data collected in an April 1-3 FOX News poll [PDF] that did not give South Carolina voters the option of supporting Cox. That poll did allow other third-tier candidates -- Jim Gilmore, Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo -- to garner the 1 percent needed for inclusion.
"There was a criteria set for the debate, and there are a lot of people who like to be in the debate,” state GOP chairman Katon Dawson told the Columbia State. "If you didn’t meet the criteria you weren’t invited to be in the debate."
After the judge's ruling this morning, Chris Oakes, attorney for the Cox campaign, told AP that despite his disappointment with the outcome, he believed Anderson "gave us a fair opportunity to be heard."
The headline currently on FoxNews.com reads, "All 10 GOP Hopefuls to Attend FOX Debate." The missing No. 11 will probably escape most people's notice. Despite some press attention in recent months, Cox has remained largely off the radar.
