Americans hoping to hear from lesser-known candidates in this year’s presidential debates may be out of luck.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., commanded much more response time than others at Sunday’s Democratic debate in Des Moines. Candidates such as Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., and former Sen. Mike Gravel, D-Alaska, saw much less face time. Is this slant in differing points of view indicative of the political atmosphere in the 2008 election cycle? Or is the news media partly to blame?

Steffen Schmidt, university professor of political science, said the lesser-known candidates are suffering from a lack of exposure that is due to slow poll growth, lack of advertising funds, and competition from high-profile candidates such as Clinton. With Edwards, Clinton and Obama having been ahead for months, it’s harder for Dodd and Kucinich to gain momentum.

“To be honest, these debates suck,” Schmidt said. “They are huge panel meetings. These debates are press conferences with [the press] just asking questions.”

And it’s not just the platform a candidate is running on, either, Schmidt said. Kucinich, for example, comes off as much more liberal than the other candidates. This race seems to be all about perception, personality and “looking presidential,” Schmidt said.

“People just don’t want to accept that fact that it’s all about looks,” he said.

How much the news media is to blame is a good question, Schmidt said, because in other countries, the media may be controlled by the government, or there may be a politically slanted press, such as socialist papers in France or Christian Democratic papers in Germany.

Even in America, Schmidt said, there are differing political biases in the press.

“The New York Times is more liberal, Fox News is more conservative, ABC is [more] conservative,” he said.

Schmidt said the general atmosphere has been created by the fact that this is a “weird year” – meaning that neither the Democrat or Republican parties have the upper hand.

Mack Shelley, university professor of statistics and educational leadership and policy studies, said with the high number of candidates running this year, it’s natural for some to be left out of the spotlight.

“That is a symptom of the way things are. It’s a horse race mentality,” Shelley said.

Shelly said the media and the American people just want to be able to focus on a few candidates.

“It kind of reduces the cognitive workload that people have,” Shelley said.

However, getting to be in that top few is getting harder and harder, as it take millions of dollars to run a successful campaign.

To be successful, Shelley said a candidate would have to have “independent wealth or be able to get money from friends, neighbors or associates.”

Shelley said when a particular political office comes with a price tag – however high that may be – the quality of the elected official may vary greatly.

“People are certainly buying their way into the office,” Shelley said.