Wallace Challenges Santorum on Debate Cut-Off: Why Not Just Improve Your Numbers?

Fox News’ Chris Wallace challenged GOP candidate Rick Santorum on Fox News Sunday this morning to explain why Fox should allow him into its debate, which it plans to limit to the ten top-polling candidates.

Santorum, who has called the cut-off “arbitrary,” argued that too many qualified candidates was a blessing, not a curse, and that Fox should split the debate into two tranches of eight, which appears to be the most popular alternative being floated.

Wallace countered that the early primary states had an outsized impact on the nomination process, and that the debate cut-off would return some selectivity to the national party. Santorum, a social conservative candidate who benefited from a strong Iowa showing in 2012, looked like he just bit into some tin foil.

Wallace finally intimated that Santorum was simply worried he wouldn’t be competitive enough. “It looks like what Carly Fiorina said: you’ve given me a goal, you’ve given me two months, I’m gonna get in,” he asked.

“Is that what campaigns should be about, measuring whether we meet some criteria in a debate?” Santorum replied.

Watch the clip below, via Fox News:

[Image via screengrab]

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