So Dennis Kucinich is irate at Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, for suggesting that he should be shut out of future debates, calling his comments “trying to rig an election.”

Unfortunately for him, apparently Kucinich ducked a debate from his primary opponent in his congressional reelection race last year.

That opponent, Barbara Anne Ferris, couldn’t be any more of a longshot than Kucinich is in this Democratic primary.

By the way, the dynamic of frontrunning candidates trying to limit participants, and weed out the longshots, is nothing new. Just think of New Hampshire in 1980, when George H.W. Bush wanted the debate limited to just Ronald Reagan and himself, while RR wanted it to include Howard Baker, John Anderson, Bob Dole and Philip Crane.

Maybe Kucinich can pay to co-sponsor a debate, let Edwards and Clinton try to exclude him, and then hit them with a, “I paid for this microphone, Senator Clinton!”

Nah. He’ll never beat the original.