Jim Webb raising money off ‘rigged’ CNN Democratic debate

Still fuming over his lack of airtime in Tuesday’s CNN-moderated debate, Democratic presidential hopeful Jim Webb is trying to raise campaign cash over what he calls a “rigged” debate.

The Webb campaign sent out an email Thursday evening soliciting funds while sharply attacking CNN and host Anderson Cooper for giving former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont the vast bulk of the time in the five-candidate debate. Mrs. Clinton spoke for 30 minutes and 25 seconds during the two-hour debate, or almost exactly twice as long as Mr. Webb’s 15 minutes and 20 seconds, according to a post-debate tally by NPR.

Mr. Sanders, second in the Democratic polls to Mrs. Clinton, spoke for just under 28 minutes.

“It’s very difficult to win a debate when you don’t have the opportunity to get to speak in the same amount of time on issues as the others get,” Mr. Webb wrote in the email appeal, which included a link marked “Contribute.” “It’s the reality that the debate was being portrayed as a showdown between Mrs. Clinton and Bernie.”

Incorporating remarks he made Thursday at a Council on Foreign Relations session, Mr. Webb, a former senator from Virginia and secretary of the Navy, wrote: “I’ll be very frank here — [the debate] was rigged in terms of who was going to get the time on the floor by the way Anderson Cooper was selecting people to supposedly respond to someone else.”

Mr. Webb, who polls at under 1 percent in the RealClearPolitics average of recent surveys of Democratic voters, expressed his frustration about a lack of airtime even as the debate was underway, complaining repeatedly that the time was not being shared equitably.

Although he was criticized for it later, he said in the fund-raising letter that he had little choice if he wanted to raise certain issues — such as his plans for criminal justice reform — before the event ended.

“In that kind of environment, it was either going to be Mr. Angry or be a potted plant,” he wrote.

The fundraising letter notes that despite his lack of time, Mr. Webb scored well in many post-debate scorecards, finishing second in online polls conducted for MSNBC and the Drudge Report.

Mr. Webb might not have the biggest beef with CNN’s debate team. Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, even lower in the polls than Mr. Webb, spoke for just 9 minutes and 5 seconds, according to the NPR log.