Donks said:
One question, the 5 polls that the CPD requires have to say that 15% of those polled (filtered whichever way is necesary) would vote for the candidate or that 15% would like to see the candidate in the debate?
As I stated earlier, 15% of people polled would probably want to have Jessica Simpsonn and Britney Spears wrestling in jello at the debate, so that's what makes opinion polls invalid.
The CPD has specific guidelines for who it has at its debates, and Badnarik doesn't fit all of them. Since the one requirement that he doesn't meet is an arbitrary percentage of likely voters, Shane claims it is invalid, acting like it is the same thing as an opinion poll, when it would be more accurate to call it a measurement.
In an opinion poll listed by Shane, 68% of the people polled would like to see Badnarik at the debates.
What's making this thread retarded is that Shane makes the claim that ALL polls are invalid for determining who should be at the debates, simply because of the apple and orange comparison of a poll of likely percentage of the votes with an
opinion poll of whether a specific candidate should be allowed.
The 15% of likely voters requirement is not an opinion poll, it is a (relatively) objective measure of how legitimate the candidate is, based on how many people are probably going to vote for him. It might be unreasonably high (it certainly is arbitrary), but Shane is not offering a different percentage, he wants the whole measurement thrown out, acting like it is an opinion poll, when it really isn't. It's just a measure of how many likely votes each candidate will get.
My issue with Shane's analysis is that he's perfectly fine with the other arbitrary measurements the CPD has, but because his particular candidate doesn't meet one of the CPD's objective requirements, that requirement should be thrown out.
Notice he doesn't rail against the other objective requirements, like U.S. citizenship (what if Schwartzenegger met all the other requirements and was obviously popular?) or having a mathematical chance of winning in the electoral college (what if a candidate is able to get 49% of the electoral ballots and 40% of the voters nationwide were going to vote for him/her. Wouldn't that also be enough to be "debate worthy"?), most likely because Badnarik happens to have them.