(This image of current GOP candidates is by DonkeyHotey.)So far, there are six official candidates who have declared their candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination -- Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorino, and Mike Huckabee. Rick Perry and Leslie Graham have already announced they will declare their candidacy in early June, and those close to John Kasich have said he will definitely run. That puts the total up to nine -- and that doesn't include the sure-fire candidacies of Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and Chris Christie. When you include them, the total goes up to twelve.
Twelve is already a lot of candidates to be involved in a debate, but no one believes that will be all of the candidates. There are another six to eight candidates who will probably jump into the race soon, raising the total to between eighteen and twenty.
The first GOP presidential debate has been set for August 6th in Cleveland (coinciding with the RNC summer meeting in that city the first week of August). By that date there could be about twenty official candidates. That sounds more like a mob scene than a debate to me.
The party played around with the idea of limiting the debate to about nine candidates, but they are now backing off from that idea. That would just make it look like the party had "preferred" candidates, and those left out (and their supporters) would view the whole race as being unfair if that was done. The last thing the GOP needs is for a segment of their party to view the process as unfair.
But how do you have a debate with twenty participants? Assuming the debate was two hours long and had no commercials, that would give the twenty candidates only 6 minutes apiece to state their case -- and if only eighteen was in the race, that would only go up to 6.7 minutes apiece. Introductory and closing speeches would quickly take care of the 6 to 6.7 minutes, and leave no time for questions to any of the candidates.
Add to this the fact that known camera-hogs like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump will be there, and they are almost sure to try and hog the conversation, leaving others with no time at all -- and you have the making of a real circus.
I don't usually watch Republican debates, but this one may be too good to miss. Get your popcorn and favorite beverage ready folks -- this debate could be a lot of fun.
