The natural inclination is to bash Clinton and Edwards for showing themselves to be elitists despite all their talk of inclusion, but they raise an interesting point:
Democrats John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton consider themselves among the top presidential candidates.
They were caught by Fox News microphones discussing their desire to limit future joint appearances to exclude some lower rivals after a forum in Detroit Thursday.
Edwards says, "We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group."
We already know some of these candidates who will not become president -- Republican Ron Paul, for example, and Democrat Dennis Kucinich, and we can throw in Tom Tancredo and Mike Gravel while we're at it. Wouldn't the electorate be better served if there were more time to get more thorough answers from the candidates who do have a chance?
We've wrestled with this as an editorial board when setting up interviews for candidates for local office. We have a limited amount of time, so would we be better off being fair to all candidates or giving ourselves more time to interview the "serious" candidates by leaving out those with little chance like the Libertarians? Usually, after much discussion, we go the "fair" route based on the idea that if candidates take the time and effort to be involved, they deserve to be heard.
I would go that way in the presidential race, too. Even if candidates don't have a chance of winning, they add value to the debate. Their responses to questions can strike a chord with voters and force the top-tier candidates to go to rhetorical places they might never have visited. We've had a lot of third parties in this country -- Socialist and Libertarian in particular -- that have not been good at winning elections but have had great influence on the ideas of the major parties.
