Below The Beltway

Ron Paul’s supporters are in an uproar over the fact that ABC and Fox News are both excluding their candidate from pre-New Hampshire debates scheduled for next weekend:

NEW YORK (AP) — ABC and Fox News Channel are narrowing the field of presidential candidates invited to debates this weekend just before the New Hampshire primary, in Fox’s case infuriating supporters of Republican Rep. Ron Paul.

The roster of participants for ABC’s back-to-back, prime-time Republican and Democratic debates Saturday in New Hampshire will be determined after results of Thursday’s Iowa caucus become clear.

Fox, meanwhile, has invited five GOP candidates to a forum with Chris Wallace scheduled for its mobile studio in New Hampshire on Sunday. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee received invites, leaving Paul of Texas and Rep. Duncan Hunter of California on the sidelines.

The network said it had limited space in its studio — a souped-up bus — and that it invited candidates who had received double-digit support in recent polls.

In a nationwide poll conducted December 14-20 by The Associated Press and Yahoo, Thompson had the support of 11 percent of GOP voters and Paul was at 3 percent. Paul’s support is at 6 percent in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll conducted in early December.

Paul was tied with Thompson for fifth in New Hampshire in the most recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, each with the support of 4 percent of likely voters. Among all New Hampshire voters, Paul led Thompson 6 percent to 4 percent, but that was within the poll’s margin of error.

The Paul campaign is claiming that this is evidence of anti-Paul bias:

Jesse Benton, Paul’s spokesman, said it was a “big mistake” not to include Paul, especially given Paul’s recent success in fundraising. He said the campaign has been trying to reach Fox News to get an explanation for the decision, but its calls had not been returned.

“There very well might be some bias,” Benton said. “Ron brings up some topics that aren’t very popular with Fox News, as in fiscal responsibility and withdrawing from the war in Iraq … that does leave us scratching our heads a little bit about whether it was deliberate. Based on metrics, I don’t see how you can possibly exclude Dr. Paul.”

Actually, given the metrics, it does have a logic to it. While there are several scenarios under which Paul could, and probably will, do better than expected in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan and Nevada, there are no realistic scenarios that have him actually winning any of those early primaries. The Paul campaign will no doubt stir up some noise over the coming weeks, but it simply isn’t realistic to expect that he will win the Republican nomination for President — anymore than it was realistic to think that when he started this campaign.

For those reasons, it makes sense for  a news organization to limit debate participants to people who have a shot at winning the nomination. Ron Paul isn’t one of those people.

That said, I think excluding Paul at this point doesn’t make sense. Notwithstanding his poll numbers, he’s been invited to every other debate that’s been held and there’s no logical reason to exclude him now before the voting has even started. Keep in mind, though, that my answer to this question will probably be different in three weeks after several primaries have been held. At that point, any candidate who isn’t polling in double digits most definitely should be excluded.