Rand Paul Unlikely To Qualify For Main Stage At Next Week’s GOP Debate

Republican presidential candidate, U.S. Sen Rand Paul, R-Ky., smiles while talking to a supporter at a book signing on Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015, at Barnes & Noble in Bowling Green, Ky. (Austin Anthony/Daily News via AP... Republican presidential candidate, U.S. Sen Rand Paul, R-Ky., smiles while talking to a supporter at a book signing on Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015, at Barnes & Noble in Bowling Green, Ky. (Austin Anthony/Daily News via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT MORE LESS
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Republican presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is unlikely to qualify alongside heavyweights like Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for CNN’s primetime debate Tuesday because of his low poll numbers.

From a Bloomberg Politics analysis released Thursday: “To qualify for the CNN-sponsored primetime debate, candidates must average at least 3.5 percent support nationally or 4 percent in either Iowa or New Hampshire, based on major polls conducted between Oct. 29 and Dec. 13.”

Paul, who’s been on the main stage for the last three Republican debates, does not earn the needed averages in either the state or national polls to qualify for CNN’s primetime event. According to Bloomberg, he only comes close in Iowa at 3.5 percent.

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  1. He shares at least one attribute with Ben Carson: neither one of these knuckleheads ever had the remotest chance of getting the GOP nomination. Both have existed in ideological bubbles full of sycophants for most of their adult lives, so that might account for their absurd belief in their chances.

    That, or they realized the grifting was just too damn good to pass up.

  2. Oh,yeah…him…I almost forgot he was still here.

  3. Eh…the way I see it is that he’s been riding on the volume of his supporters voices, not on his actual volume of supporters for the most part anyway. Once he and Carly are out the cuts might start to get interesting.

  4. With a face like that … (you fill in the blank).

  5. One very big difference is that Carson didn’t drop half a million dollars in his home state in order to fund a caucus so that he can run for both president and senator.

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