Former governors and 2012 U.S. Senate candidates Timothy M. Kaine and George Allen will face off in their first debate in December at Associated Press Day at the Capitol.
The 90-minute debate to be held Dec. 7 will be moderated by Bob Gibson, a journalist and executive director of the nonpartisan Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia.
Besides Allen and Kaine, eligible participants include any declared candidates that average 15 percent or better in published, non-candidate primary polls and have raised at least 20 percent as much money as their party's frontrunner by the end of October.
Allen and Kaine face challenges for their parties' nominations, but none of the other hopefuls appear likely to meet the standards to appear in the debate. In an Aug. 2 poll by North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling, Allen was the choice of 68 percent of Republican respondents, followed by Jamie Radtke at 6 percent, Tim Donner at 2 percent, E.W. Jackson at 2 percent and David McCormick at 0 percent.
That didn’t sit well with Jamie Radtke, a Chesterfield County tea party activist who is seeking the Republican nomination.
“It’s absolutely absurd,” she said. “They’re going to use primary polling to determine who can participate in a general election debate. Under those standards, Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul wouldn’t be able to participate in a presidential debate here in Virginia.”
Radtke noted that a Washington Post poll earlier this year showed her with almost 30 percent of the vote in a hypothetical matchup with Kaine.
“I find it very disappointing that they’re going to basically preempt the primary and determine who the general election candidates are,” she said. “We are not at that point. People are looking for other choices, and I think setting up arbitrary rules to exclude legitimate candidates is outrageous.”
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