Banning Ron Paul for His Wacky Views Is Not the Answer

The head of the Michigan GOP is infuriated with presidential candidate Ron Paul and his "blame America first" views of the 9/11 attack. He wants Paul banned from future debates:

The chairman of the Michigan Republican Party said Wednesday that he will try to bar Ron Paul from future GOP presidential debates because of remarks the Texas congressman made that suggested the Sept. 11 attacks were the fault of U.S. foreign policy.

Michigan party chairman Saul Anuzis said he will circulate a petition among Republican National Committee members to ban Paul from more debates. At a GOP candidates' debate Tuesday night, Paul drew attacks from all sides, most forcefully from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, when he linked the terror attacks to U.S. bombings.

This is not a good idea. The GOP should not be a party which bans people based on their views. However, I agree that Paul has no business on the debate stage, not because of his views, but because he has no chance of being the nominee.

There is a way, however, to keep candidates like Paul off the stage. Candidates with views that are out of the mainstream of the GOP will never draw large poll numbers. Simply set a minimum polling threshold for candidates and that will solve the problem of the outliers like Paul. The Democrats might want to try the same thing with Dennis Kucinich.

UPDATE: Another writer thinks Mr. Anuzis' response to Paul is based more on politics than patriotism. Mr. Anuzis is apparently a big McCain supporter, and Paul antics didn't help McCain at all, but definitely helped Giuliani, who knocked Paul's hanging 9/11 curveball out of the park.