Faced with the possibility that he could be relegated to the undercard debate in January, Rand Paul said on Monday that the "real question" should be whether Jeb Bush, who has raised millions, would be bumped from the main stage.
"The good news is, you know, the most recent polling has me in sixth place in Iowa—I think in fifth place in Iowa and sixth place nationally," Paul told Iowa radio host Jeff Angelo. "And the real question should be, are they gonna relegate Jeb Bush to a second-tier debate? Are we gonna take somebody who's raised 100 million dollars, has organizations in 50 states, and put them in the second tier? What that does right before an election is tells all the voters that why bother voting for Bush or why bother voting for somebody in the second tier?"
Politico reported last week that Fox Business Network could whittle down the primetime field to six candidates for the next debate. Paul reiterated on Monday that he thinks such a narrowing process is unfair.
"So no, I do think it's unfair and I'm not going to let the media define who I am or whether I have a chance," the Kentucky senator said. "I think it's really a rotten thing for the party to be involved with. The thing is, the polls have been so inaccurate that we should not base our decisions on who has a chance based on faulty numbers."