Stein is now effectively hosed, and the only way Johnson can qualify is by vaulting up in the next four weeks or so from around 9 percent in the polls to the required 15 percent.

Things seem pretty hopeless — unless the commission feels pressure to crack open the duopoly.

And there’s a chance that will come to pass.

On Monday, commission co-chair Mike McCurry, the former Bill Clinton White House press secretary, semi-confirmed to Politico that the commission is telling debate venues to make contingency plans for a third podium. “With Gary Johnson polling in some places more than double digits,” McCurry said, “some of our production people may have said, ‘Just in case, you need to plan out what that might look like.’”

The commission’s Republican co-chair, Frank Fahrenkopf Jr., went even further in an interview with CNN: “If someone came in and let’s say he was (polling) at 14.5 percent and the margin of error in five polls was three points, we are going to have to sit down and look at it.”

The commission and its overlords are right to ponder a tweak to the rules, if for no other reason than to fulfill its mission “to ensure that debates, as a permanent part of every general election, provide the best possible information to viewers and listeners.”