As the Democratic candidates prepare for Saturday's debate, two of the candidates - Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley - continue to complain that the Democratic National Committee's schedule is stacked against them by not giving them more opportunities to face off against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton on the debate stage.
Further, they say, with half of the few debates scheduled on Saturday and Sunday evenings, they are too often televised at times when viewers aren't likely to hear their messages, which has the appearance of a process that inherently supports Hillary Clinton.
"They’ve scheduled it during shopping season, December 19th," O’Malley told The New York Times. "I don’t know why that is. I think it’s out of a false sense that they have to circle the wagons around the inevitable front-runner."
More pointedly, Sanders spokesman said that they were "playing the hand we were dealt," quipping, "I guess Christmas Eve was booked."
For the last Democratic debate in Des Moines in November, the viewership was dismal. Only 8.5 million people tuned in for the debate. By comparison, Tuesday's Republican debate brought in 18 million viewers, according to USA Today.
"We can't fool ourselves - the Republicans are eating our lunch in terms of attention and viewership because of the unprecedented, unilateral, and arbitrary way the DNC Chair determined this schedule," Lis Smith, deputy campaign manager for Martin O'Malley, told Politico following the last Democratic debate. "It's clear we need to open up the process, have more debates, and engage more voters in this process."
Some point out that Clinton is conspicuously absent from the complaints about the truncated debate schedule, also suggesting that the process is bent to support a Clinton nomination.
"All of the candidates have talked about it except for one and its not difficult to see why," former Democratic primary candidate Lawrence Lessig told the Washington Examiner last month. "I guess I'm the last naive guy in the room. I never would have believed that the game would be played this way, the goal post moving."
The DNC, however, has rejected the idea that the party was favoring Clinton in the primary process.
“We’re confident that between our debates and forums, together with the candidates’ town halls, county fair visits, and living-room conversations in states like Iowa and New Hampshire, our candidates are having ample opportunities to engage with voters and to present their visions to keep America moving forward,” Luis Miranda, a spokesman for the committee, told The New York Times.
