Fox News refuses to host an all-candidate GOP presidential debate. But C-SPAN has other ideas.

(Image credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

published 15 July 2015

While Fox News has determined it will divide the crowded Republican field into two tiers for two debates, C-SPAN has preemptively announced a more inclusive broadcast out of New Hampshire.

All 17 GOP candidates are invited to the Aug. 3 event, but so far only candidates who are unlikely to be included in the main event at Fox have RSVPed, presumably eager to get on stage with bigger names. These early participants include Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, and Lindsey Graham.

The public access channel will work with several New Hampshire newspapers to host the event, including the New Hampshire Union-Leader, whose publisher, Joe McQuaid, vocally opposed Fox's exclusive arrangement. Divvying up the candidates "isn't just bad for New Hampshire;" McQuaid argues, "it's bad for the presidential selection process by limiting the field to only the best-known few with the biggest bankrolls."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.