In the modern life cycle of a political election, it is easy to identify the one hurdle third party candidates usually stumble upon. And it is one hurdle over which they have absolutely no control: The pollsters.

In what has become the benchmark for candidate viability, major pollsters, such as Zogby, Quinnipiac, and Rasmussen, are the gatekeepers for third party and independent political office seekers. If a candidate is excluded from the polls, they are excluded from the debates, the candidate forums, and from media coverage as a whole.

While most Republican/Democrat political duopoly candidates have a “golden ticket” to be included in polls without question, third party candidates are often left standing in the porridge line asking, “Please, sir, may I have some more?”

The Florida U.S. Senate race has become a perfect example of this paradox.

Take Alexander Snitker, the Libertarian candidate. Libertarians are the third largest political party in the state of Florida. Snitker has been actively campaigning since July 2009. He qualified for the ballot in April 2010, ahead of sitting Governor Charlie Crist. He's made hundreds of campaign stops. He has hundreds of active volunteers. He has thousands of fans on his combined social media sites. His website gets nearly as much traffic as his big three rivals: Charlie Crist (NPA), Kendrick Meek (D), and Marco Rubio (R). His yard signs and bumper stickers are popping up all over the state.

Yet, not one major pollster has included his name when asking potential voters for whom they plan to pull the lever.

Pollsters usually cite media coverage as a primary criteria for inclusion in a poll, or they simply make a judgment call. Debra Falk of Rasmussen Reports said that, “We research their campaigns, coverage in local media, etc. and make a determination about inclusion from there. Who and what we poll about comes down to our own judgment.”

Consequently, the mainstream media usually cites polling data as criteria for inclusion in candidate debates and forums, as well as in their own reporting.

A perfect example of this took place in Sarasota, Florida in June. The Florida Press Association (FPA) held a candidate forum at the Ritz-Carlton, and invited all U.S. Senate candidates who had received at least 10% support in a “credible poll.” The invitees were Charlie Crist, Marco Rubio, Kendrick Meek, and newcomer on the Democrat ticket, Jeff Greene.

Alexander Snitker was excluded from the forum. Since no poll had even included his name, he had no opportunity to achieve 10% in any poll.

That didn't sit too well with the former Marine, so Snitker crashed the event and demanded to be heard. He was not given the opportunity. The reason the organizers cited? Polling data.

However, the curiosity in this event was Jeff Greene. Greene had arguably less name recognition as Snitker at the time he was invited, yet Greene made the polls and was invited to speak.

The difference between Greene and Snitker...aside from the former being a Progressive and the latter being a Constitutional conservative? The glaring difference is that Greene is a Democrat.

But interestingly, so is Maurice Ferre, who is also running for U.S. Senate on the Democrat ticket. Ferre has solid political credentials as the former mayor of Miami. Like Snitker, Ferre didn't get an invite to the FPA candidate forum.

Greene, on the other hand, has political credentials that include making billions on credit default swaps which helped collapse the housing market, as well as being BFFs with Heidi Fleiss and Mike Tyson.

So what is the real, unstated reason that Greene was included and Snitker and Ferre were not? Jeff Greene is a billionaire. Once again in politics, especially from the viewpoint of the pollsters and the media, money talks.

Snitker, realizing that the pollsters would ignore him for as long as they could get away with doing so, took some proactive steps to overcome this hurdle. In May he commissioned an independent poll with a small polling firm. The results showed Snitker in third place with 12% among likely voters that were familiar with Crist, Rubio, Meek and Snitker.

Snitker has also asked his supporters to call and email the pollsters on his behalf. After being inundated with calls and emails, several of the pollsters responded that they received the message loud and clear. However, they still maintain that there is no guarantee that they will include him in the next poll.

Perhaps they are waiting until he makes his first billion.