Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2014 11:08 AM
To: Craighill, Peyton M; Clement, Scott F
Subject: Fwd: Why was this forum limited to only 3 incumbent
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10:28 AM (22 hours ago)
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Scott
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though one or perhaps two of them are so,low in the polls they cannot be elected.
And you excluded anyone from a party other than the Democrats.
Sent from my iPad
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Sep 20 (2 days ago)
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We certainly didn’t exclude non-Democrats. We included two independents
who are former Republicans.
Our decision was based on polling. It is pretty common to exclude candidates
polling below a certain threshold — 5 percent or 10 percent, say. The three
candidates posted 43, 26 and 16 percent in our poll, respectively. All other
choices registered a total of 1 percent combined.
I hope this helps. Thanks for your interest.
Regards,
Amy Gardner
Local politics editor
The Washington Post
Sent from my iPad
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polled other names? That hasn’t been reported. Everyone I know who
was polled reports not being given any other options.
even after being given tons of free media and having spent over $4 million.
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9:54 AM (21 hours ago)
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your name. That was an editorial decision based on several factors
including fundraising, campaign activity and name recognition. The
fact that just 1 percent of voters said they wanted to vote for
anyone other than the three top candidates justifies that decision.
I understand your point that there’s an inherent disadvantage in not
being offered as a choice. But, with all due respect, if yours were a
viable candidacy you would have registered beyond
these results even without your name in the question rotation.
I’m happy to refer you to our pollsters if you’d like to talk more
about our decision.
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not viable candidates.
explain themselves. It’s actually something a journalist would cover.
union and PAC money will be promoted by major media, and citizen
candidates will not, so that things are locked in place in perpetuity.
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10:11 AM (21 hours ago)
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26 and 16 percent are real numbers. They’re longshot numbers,
but they’re real numbers that make them worth our attention.
If you don’t think Schwartz and Catania are viable candidates, how
on earth do you justify coverage of your campaign? You didn’t even
register in the poll — at all.
However, your view that we are here simply to perpetuate the
status quo in untrue. You may recall that your fellow Libertarian
Robert Sarvis registered in the low double digits last year in the
Virginia governor’s race, and we wrote a front-page story about
him. We’re ready to cover viable campaigns that are making a
difference. Sarvis was a potential spoiler, as is Schwartz this year.
He registered with voters who were looking for something
other than what McAuliffe or Cuccinelli had to offer. We noticed,
and we wrote about it. With all due respect, your campaign has
had no parallel impact on the race this year.
There is no question the system is stacked against minor-party
candidates. And we have to make editorial decisions every day
about how to deploy our ever-shrinking resources. In a perfect
world, would we delve into every single campaign and
candidate? Of course. But we can’t. And frankly, people wouldn’t
read it all. I’m sorry it’s not the answer you want to hear. No
one’s trying to “explain themselves.” I’m telling you the truth about
how we make our decisions.
Thanks for your time.
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your second reply, after implying that I had been presented in it and just
didn’t show up in your first reply, which you now seem to be reverting to
in your third reply.
for me so they simply pressed a number on their phone that corresponded
to none of the choices offered. Perhaps those responses were just tossed?
voting for someone other than Catania or Bowser (a pretty common
phenomenon in all elections). From Post reporter Mike Debonis’s discussion
on WMAL radio I understand you asked Schwartz voters whether their
second choice was Catania or Bowser, again, not who there 2nd choice
was or which of all the choices on the ballot are the second choice. So
you are really just saying you aren’t in our poll so you didn’t
show up in our poll so we won’t be offering you as an option in forums
or in our future poll.
managed to count past two to three. Your rebuttal with Sarvis is slightly
off topic – I am not accusing you of prejudice against Libertarians. I’m
suggesting a much more systemic problem than that.