As we get deeper into the campaign, I do not have a problem with excluding candidates who are not generating any substantial public support. Gravel, I think, was an example of that in the Democratic debates. But I think the Paulbots have a pretty good case for outrage with Ron Paul's exclusion from the upcoming Republican debate in New Hampshire.

Paul's supporters lay most of their claim to a place in the debate on his mammoth fundraising numbers. To me, the bigger issue is that Paul is consistently outpolling Fred Thompson, who is being allowed into the debate.

As you can see by this trendline chart which brings together all the public polls in New Hampshire, Paul's support (red line -- 6.2%) and Thompson's (blue line -- 3.1%) are both pretty anemic. But Paul isn't that far off from Mike Huckabee (green line -- 11.5%). And the key fact is that the excluded Paul is outpolling the included Thompson. So there is simply no objective criteria by which you include Thompson and exclude Paul, who by the way has vastly outraised Thompson.

It was unclear to me until just now whether the real factor here was the NH GOP or Fox News, the sponsor of the debate. But the state party is now calling on Fox not to exclude viable candidates. So, it's not them. Or if it was, it isn't now.

So, it's all about Fox News. Paul's out because he's not a Fox News Bush-clone. Say whatever you want about the guy, Fox News shouldn't be able to silence him because they don't like his views.