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Open the Debates
An anonymous user writes, "It's time to let the George W. Bush and John Kerry campaigns know that the American people want them to participate in real, democratic and engaging presidential debates hosted by the Citizens' Debate Commission." Briefly, Presidential debates have been run by the Commission on Presidential Debates since 1988, and the CPD is run by the Republican and Democratic parties, which has resulted in less informative and less watched debates that exclude third parties and anything else that could hurt the two parties. The CDC, in cooperation with Open Debates, is trying to improve the debates by removing the bipartisan control.
"Please do not be shy. Senator Kerry and President Bush are campaigning to be your public servants, and you should not hesitate to remind them of your wishes. Kerry campaign: 202-712-3000; Bush campaign: 703-647-2700. Please call this week! The major party campaigns have assembled their high-profile debate negotiating teams, and they will soon begin debate negotiations. Finally, Open Debates' Executive Director George Farah will be appearing on ABC World News Now tonight (sometime between 1am and 3am EST, for those of you still awake), and on ABC News Now Thursday morning at 6am EST. (They are different programs.)"
If noone watches it, then you'll find out about it be reading a summary, which will onclude the good sound-bites, and nothing else, and/or will be filtered through the biases of whomever made the summary.
In other words, it would serve no purpose, other than possibly to let us see which candidate could hold his water longest, assuming no bathroom breaks.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Commission on Presidential Debates
I found this a few months ago and I think it's an awesome little history of how the debates were wrestled from the control of the League of Women's voters. Please read this before complaining about third party candidates entering the debates.
There are more brief histories on Wikipedia and Disinfopedia. If you are at a university with access to bigger encyclopedia that cost money I suggest you poke through the history of the debates on one of those.
The overall lesson you'll learn is that the United States Commission on Presidential Debates is completely unfair to everyone but the two big parties... and how many of us completely agree with either or those?
For those of you who don't like Bush, check here and notice that all the midwestern states that support him are also the larger supporters of Nader. All those complaints that Nader is taking points from Kerry are self-defeating. Those complaints are just causing the conservatives who don't like Bush to vote for him anyway since they really don't like Kerry and they don't believe there's anyone else available since the other options get downplayed so heavily.
America needs debate reform, and that's a requirement before we'll get more parties.
--Matthew
Direct away from face when opening.
You're an idiot, you have the percentages wrong, but the problem is not that the "US media" insists on being able to ask the questions. They are NOT the ones asking the questions. What we have RIGHT NOW is what you are saying we *should* have: the candidates are working back room deals before the debates to decide what will be talked about.
The LAST thing you want is the candidates able to completely dictate the information given to the american public. You WANT the candidates to be asked questions they don't want to answer!! don't you!?!?!?
None of the independent parties is even at 5%, and 15% sounds more than reasonable. To win you need 50%. 5% to 50% means increasing your support ten fold.
...
... we know that less than 15% is sufficient to get into the 30% range, that it's possible to get a bump like that. And, we know that the 30% range is enough to become President. So what was your point again? :-)
There's two problems with your argument.
First, Jesse Ventura in Minnesota had only 10% in the polls before the debates. He ended up winning the election. I know a Presidential race is different, but it is not as different as you think, because
Second, you do not need 50 percent. You've been misinformed. The last President to get 50% of the so-called popular vote was George H. W. Bush in 1992. You need more than 50% of the electoral college votes to win the election outright, but that's not very interesting either, because that's not a requirement either: if no one gets more than 50% of the electoral college votes, then the House decides the winner from the top three (which is what happened with John Quincy Adams).
Ask yourself: if the top two candidates were all that mattered, why does the Constitution say they choose from the top three? If you're going to argue for a limited number of candidates, it seems the Constitution should guide us, and that the number should therefore be three, not two.
So anyway
You know what? Fuck the debates. They're not important.
I'll tell you what is important: Slashdot interviews. It's shameful that the wankers running this site haven't already solicited slashdotters for +5 insightful questions that they want answers to.
[o]_O
The debates should definately be open to anyone who is on the ballot in enough states to be able to win the election. In other words, if it is possible (not necessarily probable) for them to win enough electorial votes to win, they should be in the debates.
Exactly. All this polling percentage crap, and subjective measures of "popularity" need to go out the window. Any candidate who has a mathematical chance of winning, should be in the debates. Right now that would mean, I believe, Bush, Kerry, Badnarik, and Peroutka. Not sure if Nader or Cobb are on ballots with enough electoral votes to have a chance to win. Badnarik is confirmed on enough ballots to have 466 electoral votes available though, so he would definitely be in under this system. Peroutka is on 35 states' ballots, so I *think* he probably has a mathematical chance as well.
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