Oct 8, 2011

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October 8, 2011

The Honorable Michael Bloomberg

Bloomberg Tower

731 Lexington Avenue

New York, NY 10022-1331

mbloomberg@cityhall.nyc.gov

RE: Rick Perry Did Not Qualify for Tuesday Bloomberg News Debate

Dear Mayor Bloomberg:

I am not sure if you are aware, but the recently announced “pre-established objective criteria” used to determine who will be in the Bloomberg TV, Washington Post, WBIN TV, Dartmouth College Debate is flawed.  Not all eight invited participants meet your criteria as reported in the Washington Post yesterday:

http://washingtonpostlive.com/conferences/2012-republican-presidential-debate

Candidates had to meet all four of the following criteria in order to be invited to participate in the Republican Presidential Debate this Tuesday, October 11, 2011:

A.    Received measurable popular support in a range of national polls.

B.    Campaign reported at least half a million dollars raised in its FEC filing through the 2011 second quarter reporting period.

C.    Is a legally qualified candidate for the Republican nomination for President.

D.    Participated in at least three nationally televised Republican Presidential debates during the 2012 election cycle.

Our campaign checked all eight candidates to see if each met your criteria.  Guess what?

RICK PERRY WAS NOT A CANDIDATE BY THE END OF 2nd QUARTER AND HAS NOT FILED ANY FEC FUNDRAISING REPORTS:

Rick Perry did not join the race until August 12, 2011, 43 days after the end of the 2nd reporting period.  Rick Perry has yet to file ANY FEC fundraising reports for any quarter: http://images.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00500587

RICK PERRY WAS REPORTED TO BE IN DEBATE BY BLOOMBERG:

Bloomberg already reported that Rick Perry was in the debate on October 4, 2011: http://inside.bloomberg.com/blog/2011/10/candidates-announced-for-1st-gop-economic-debate.html

Mayor Bloomberg, since the debate organizers are not sticking to their own rules, then how about letting all serious Republican candidates for President on the stage to debate and talk about our ideas to fix the economy?

Let in former Governor’s Gary Johnson, Buddy Roemer and me.  We all have much to add to this all important discussion.

Otherwise, under the organizers “pre-established objective criteria,” Mr. Perry should not be allowed to debate Tuesday at Dartmouth.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this very important matter.

Best regards,

Fred Karger

cc:  Washington Post

WBIN TV
Dartmouth College

Federal Election Commission

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