Moderators for Prez & VP Debates Released

The Commission on Presidential Debates just the moderators for its three presidential debates and one vice presidential debate. The CPD had previously the dates and sites of the events. Unfortunately (and inexplicably), not one event will occur in the Mountain West or on the West Coast and no-one from ABC News will be participating:

First presidential debate:
Friday, September 26
University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS
Jim Lehrer, Executive Editor and Anchor, The NewsHour, PBS

Vice presidential debate:
Thursday, October 2
Washington University in St. Louis, MO
Gwen Ifill, Senior Correspondent, The NewsHour, and Moderator and Managing Editor, Washington Week, PBS

Second presidential debate (town meeting):
Tuesday, October 7
Belmont University, Nashville, TN
Tom Brokaw, Special Correspondent, NBC News

Third presidential debate:
Wednesday, October 15
Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY
Bob Schieffer, CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent, and Host, Face the Nation

Lehrer, Ifill and Schieffer all moderated debates in 2004, with ABC News' Charles Gibson also running one that year.

Centre College in Danville KY and Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem NC will serve as backup sites. The formats will be as follows:

• Each debate will have a single moderator and last for 90 minutes.

• In the first and third presidential debates and the vice presidential debate, the candidates will be seated with the moderator at a table.

• One presidential debate will focus primarily on domestic policy and one presidential debate will focus primarily on foreign policy. The second presidential debate will be held as a town meeting in which citizens will pose questions to the candidates. The vice presidential debate will cover both foreign and domestic topics.

• During the first and third presidential debates, and the vice presidential debate, the time will be divided into eight, ten-minute segments. The moderator will introduce each segment with an issue on which each candidate will comment, after which the moderator will facilitate further discussion of the issue, including direct exchange between the candidates for the balance of that segment.

• The participants in the town meeting will pose their questions to the candidates after reviewing their questions with the moderator for the sole purpose of avoiding duplication. The participants will be chosen by the Gallup Organization and will be undecided voters from the Nashville, Tenn. standard metropolitan statistical area. During the town meeting, the moderator has discretion to use questions submitted by Internet.

• Time at the end of the final presidential debate will be reserved for closing statements.

Looks like Independent Ralph Nader, Libertarian Bob Barr, Green Cynthia McKinney will face difficulties in being included in the events. And don't even mention Ron Paul and his Campaign for Liberty.

The CPD site provides the that will be used to determine which candidates can participate in the debates. In a nutshell, each participating candidate must be constitutionally eligible, appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to have a mathematical chance of winning a majority vote of the electoral college and have 15% support in national polls before the debates.

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