Excerpt from the Clyde Haberman column in NYTimes:

TAKE Jonathan Tasini.

What? You never heard of him? Can’t blame you. Some may even believe that his first name is Little-known, given that he is sometimes referred to as Little-known Jonathan Tasini.

He is a labor organizer and writer who is running in the Democratic primary as an antiwar challenger to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. His chances of victory would seem to hover somewhere between nil and zilch. Even so, whatever the strengths or weaknesses of his ideas, he is a legitimate candidate who qualified for the Sept. 12 primary ballot.

Mrs. Clinton, however, has not deigned to debate him. Nor has NY1 News, a dominant force in New York election campaigns, deemed him worthy to be included in the debates that it sponsors. Its rules require a candidate to have raised at least $500,000 to merit an invitation. Mr. Tasini doesn’t come close.

His supporters accuse NY1 of redlining their man. In response, the station’s general manager, Steve Paulus, says that $500,000 is not an insurmountable sum and that a dollar cutoff is needed to determine which candidates deserve to be taken seriously. NY1 hardly ignores Mr. Tasini in its news reports, Mr. Paulus says, and besides, the real issue is Mrs. Clinton and her unwillingness thus far to expose herself to a debate.

Point taken. Nonetheless, you have to wonder if we have formally reached the stage where the relative worthiness of political candidates is decided not by the content of their ideas but rather the bulk of their wallets. What does this say about our political life?