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Nationally-syndicated radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, whose conservative radio program can be heard in more than 120 cities across the country every weekday afternoon, is urging the Republican National Committee to intervene in the 2012 Republican presidential debates and exclude Rep. Ron Paul and other “marginal candidates” from participating in future debates.
Hewitt, who teaches constitutional law at Chapman University Law School, included long-shot hopefuls Herman Cain, the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, and ex-New Mexico governor Gary Johnson in his short list of candidates with absolutely no hope of winning the party’s presidential nomination.
In his provocative piece, published earlier this month, the 55-year-old Hewitt argued that the sheer seriousness of the country’s economic crisis requires the GOP to present its case — and its candidates — in the most responsible way possible.
“Allowing marginal candidates to eat up time and distract from the enormous problems facing the country is not serious,” wrote Hewitt.
That’s precisely why former Gov. Mitt Romney and ex-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich refused to take part in South Carolina’s Republican presidential debate earlier this month, he said.
Curiously, however, Hewitt seems to have given Pennsylvania’s Rick Santorum — one of the darkest of the dark horse candidates — a free pass. Never mind that the former two-term legislator was unceremoniously routed from the U.S. Senate in an 18-point thumping five years ago, or that his prospects of winning the Republican nomination in 2012 are only peripherally better than those candidates Hewitt would like to exclude.
He belongs in the debates, says Hewitt.
That’ll surely go over well with the Paul and Cain folks.
If any of Hewitt’s students read this……….I hope they boycott him. This man needs to be sent a loud and clear message that he is wrong and shortsighted here.
Your Comments
Yes, this all makes perfect sense. The GOP debates would be far better if everyone agreed with each other and read from the party handbook. In fact, why bother with preselection and elections at all? The public are too ignorant to process ideas. They’ll just en up supporting a “populist” opinion. God forbid that anything popular with the general public ever comes to pass
I used to like Hewitt, but after this comment I wont take him seriously.. RP was the one who spurred the Tea Party on and perhaps was the one who created it.. To dismiss RP like this is a huge mistake.. I wont be listening to Hewitt with much seriousness after this..
Your Comments
What Mr. Hewitt overlooks, and as a teacher he shouldn’t, is that whatever any of the candidates have to say can be educational to the rest of us who want to hear what they think and what they believe. We need to overcome the general populace’s apathey.
I wonder if Hugh Hewitt is a RINO? By exluding Ron Paul from the debates would sure be the end of the Republicans chances of getting back into the Oval Office for a long time. Hugh Hewitt is driving a stake into the hearts of the Republicans. What a foolish thing to say. The RNC should make Hugh Hewitt eat his words and call him out on his true colors…a Democrat!
I agree with Hugh. Anyone who doesn’t stand a chance of winning should not be in these debates.
Since there will only be one winner, there should only be one candidate.
The only way to determine that candidate is taking a major national poll that was recently done by an unbiased party, and see who has the best shot at winning against Obama. CNN qualifies.
Mr. Hewitt, What a silly little man you are!
Recent polls shows that in a head to head race, Ron Paul does best against Obama among all the likely GOP contenders. Anyone who says he has no chance at winning must have their head in the sand.
Seriously? The economy is the major issue but you think the only guy who would make the cuts nessecary to fix the deficit/budget/unfunded liabilities problems should be excluded? And I also see where you stand on the first amendment. I can’t wait for your kinds demise in politics, you’re running scared. Foreign intervention, both in the forms of war and foreign aid, and the drug war also take up substantial portions of our budget, you’re irrelevent to the current discourse in America, tool!
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ronpaul2012/
Let’s try to get 100,000 signatures before the next election!
Your Comments And Romney should be excluded for passing RomneyCare. Pawlenty should be excluded for supporting Cap and Trade. Gingrich should be excluded for his House reprimand. Donald Trump should be excluded for never having held any office.
Give me a break…
Can’t let those stupid voters decide for themselves, can we Hugh? This action says it all about our elites.
Hugh Hewitt is a moron! Not only that but an establishment shill clown too! Hugh’s only useful purpose to exist is to be a mouthpiece for what little remains of the establishment neocons that are clinging for their very survival. Hugh is supposed to be a “professor” of constitutional studies, when in reality he knows nothing about the constitution and is a blithering idiot. If Hugh was actually anything other than what I just said, and if he has really read the constitution, he should be whole-heartedly supporting Ron Paul. But unfortunately, he is nothing more than a high paid puppet for his Republican masters.
Actually, Hugh Hewitt knows about as much about the constitution as a Borneo headhunter. I will take this clown on any day to discuss the constitution, and hopefully teach this punk something!
Every time I hear a pundit say “so-and-so is not a serious candidate” I just dismiss them as not a serious pundit.
‘Excluding’ anyone from the debates who has met the criteria set down by the organizers is foolish for the Republican (and any other) Party. I find it continually amazing that the self-appointed ‘experts’ in media, academia and in the political party elites seem to confuse our representative republic with a fascist or communistic totalitarian state! It is the VOTERS who decide the candidates in America- at least it used to be. Letting those in power decide candidates either through inclusion or exclusion is a tactic that Mao, Stalin and Lenin would be proud of. Perhaps the ‘Let Them Eat Cake’ crowd are more than a little nervous that the ‘great unwashed’ have grabbed their torches and pitchforks and are now storming the gates of The MSM/Party elites’ Versaille Palace.
These kinds of elitist exclusionary rants tend to come from radio and tv hosts, and Party hacks, who exist in an egotistical echo chamber where nobody questions their ‘intellectual superiority’, and all their sycophants can do is tear down and belittle anyone who dares disagree with their idoelogical orthodoxy.
Big News: while most Americans may be ignorant of the facts due to the failure of the MSM to do their job properly, the majority still possess pretty good B$ detectors, and can smell a ripe argument- even over the airwaves!
I find it very disappointing that someone who should understand the Constitution would want take away 1st Amendment rights from any candidate. Hugh Hewitt is way out of touch with reality and clearly has NO respect for the Constitution. It is the supreme law of the land and if you don’t want to follow it, maybe you should find a new country to live in where there is a nice little dictatorship that holds the same views. Incredible!!!
Hewitt should be kept off the radio and off the internet. I never heard of the guy before, he couldn’t possible bring insight or anything important to the conversation. He is fringe at most.
Ron Paul vs. The Philosophically Bankrupt
After reading the name-calling and other non sequiturs from the anti-Ron Paul crowd, I am of the view that their hostility arises less from his opposition to war, or the direction American foreign policy has taken for decades, or any of the other specific programs he has criticized. What troubles them the most is that Paul has a philosophically-principled integrity in what he advocates and that, to challenge him, one must be prepared to deal with him at that higher level.
But modern political discourse long ago gave up on principles, in favor of the pursuit of power as a sufficient end. There is an intellectual bankruptcy exhibited by writers and speakers on the political “left,” “right,” or “middle.” Competing ideas and values that once engaged the minds of thoughtful men and women have given way to little more than pronouncements on behalf of narrowly-defined political programs; the validity of a proposition no longer depends upon reasoned analysis, but upon the outcome of public opinion polls.
Ron Paul’s campaign interjects an energized, principled inquiry into the political realm, an undertaking for which men and women with no philosophic center or rigorous minds find themselves woefully ill-prepared.
Do they really count the votes? The only way Ron Paul gets in is if there is a revolution. Hmmm.
How did someone so clueless ans selfish could get his own radio show?
Marginal? yeah right, Dr Paul is the only person on the stage that actually knows stuff. Without his ideas this country wont last another 4 years.
What a crock. This guy exemplifies what is wrong with our educational system, top to bottom. He probably is tenured, too… Where in our Constitution did he get this?
Gof fuck yourself HUGH, you beatty eyed little neocon.
Your Comments
these Ron Paul haters are so behind the times-they are so caught up in yesterday`s news that they can`t see that its now popular to agree with Ron Paul-Mr Hewitt get your head out of your ass and look around you.
You will not want to be left behind this time around-it`s a great time to be alive and a great time to be a Ron Paul supporter
This author should be tar’d n feather’d
Mr. Ron Paul for 2012 Republican Nom and President.
-Strengthen our USD
-No Inflation
-Balance the Budget
-No Mandated Healthcare
-Creates MANY JOBS
-New Crop Industries
-Free Market
-Very Pro Life
-No Bailout
-No Patriot Act
-Stays out of foreign DOMESTIC AFFAIRS, but contract/trade with all
-No Unjustified War with no objectives (Currently they are the longest lasting, most expensive, most unproductive wars in American History)
-Brings our Troops Home after over 10 YEARS OF FIGHTING!!!!
The USA could have fought WWII twice in 10 years!
Please, let’s bring America’s Troops home. They deserve it.
Leave the Middle East, and all other Nations that are agreed to be sovereign, ALONE with regard to DOMESTIC AFFAIRS.
American Lives are NOT toys.
Bring our Troops Home
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t’s been over a decade now and all the comments made here still remain true.