You need some sort of way to cap the debate. Large debates aren’t debates. They’re just an opportunity for people to be asked one random question.

There's got to be some threshold, though. I agree that new faces need to be able to get on the stage, but it can't just be anyone who wants to. Debates with too many candidates are chaotic.

But the founding fathers were so terrified of poor people they created the Electoral College to ensure the “right” people [...] got in charge.

E-e-e-hhh... kinda. It also had to do with the fact that states like Virginia had comparatively few voters (they had lots of slaves, but fewer white men), so they were worried that they'd be voted down by the northern states. So the worry was that those states wouldn't want to join the Union. The Electoral College, which gave slave states a boost in presidential elections, was a sop to get them to join.

A modern equivalent would be a state like California or Texas, with lots of non-citizen immigrants: they're not citizens, so they can't vote, but they do count for purposes of assigning House seats, and thus Electors.

I smell money laundering.

I'm confused about the mechanics of that. They still need to pay for the gift cards and that money needs to come from somewhere. And even if they manage to hide where the gift card money is coming from, a 20:1 money laundering scheme sounds ridiculously inefficient.

I don't see how that would be possible.

This seems simply a way to buy in to getting on the debate stage.

Honestly, this doesn't seem terrible and wouldn't work outside of this sole purpose. They're the ones that created the barrier for entry in that way. Outside of this (ie, after debating), it's not cost effective at all. There's no other benefit other than to reach a minimum score for the debate. I mean, I'm not a GOPer and based on the little I've seen, I can't say this with a straight face for this case, but if someone truly believed in their message and thought they had a chance but aren't already entrenched in politics, this is a way to kind of bulldoze in and be taken "seriously". That being said, this seems more like a guy who thinks he knows better because he.has money.