In case you're wondering when they are:
First presidential debate: Friday, September 26 University of Mississippi, Oxford, MSVice presidential debate: Thursday, October 2 Washington University in St. Louis, MO
Second presidential debate: Tuesday, October 7 Belmont University, Nashville, TN
Third presidential debate: Wednesday, October 15 Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY
At some point the 15% rule has to be destroyed and replaced with something more open and more effective for voters. One of the criteria for inclusion in the debates:
The CPD's third criterion requires that the candidate have a level of support of at least 15% (fifteen percent) of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations' most recent publicly-reported results at the time of the determination.
One of these years there's going to be a candidate that comes close, but doesn't quite make, this arbitrary 15% number, and then CPD is going to look like the clique at the country club. This year we're destined to hear from Nader, Barr and others about the unfairness of this debate policy, and I suspect it will have a lot more resonance with voters after watching two primaries chock full of debates where the stage was crowded with candidates. The debate process still worked. The real benefit is that more ideas, and less posturing, came out when there were more candidates - the number of candidates required the candidates to focus on making themselves stand out as opposed to tearing down the sole opposition. Yes, there was some ganging up on the leader, but even that was kept in check by the candidates to prevent the perception of a candidate only being there to "pile on".
Fringe candidates prove themselves as fringe rather quickly. Passable ideas find acceptance amongst all candidates, and some common ground is determined. In the past I would have preferred otherwise, but now I want to see more candidates than two at the debates. CPD needs to figure out a new standard.