Real Presidential Debates

slithytove writes "As many of us are aware, the presidential debates are currently controlled by an organization called the Commision on Presidential Debates. As anyone who's seen a presidential debate recently could guess, the CPD does just what our two major parties want: exclude third parties and impose rules that make the event more of a joint press conference than a debate. Non-establishment candidates Michael Badnarik and David Cobb will be having an actual debate this Thursday. After debating each other, they will be rebutting the points Bush and Kerry make in their pseudo-debate. Free Market News will be streaming it and providing a download afterwards."

Comments

Will this be copyrighted or copylefted?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Can we spread DVDs recorded off the stream around? Anything these two have to say is bound to be much more open and interesting than what the oligopolists have to say.

Re:Will this be copyrighted or copylefted?

[WalterDGeranios]

Do this actually matter though. They aren't legitimate candidates for Pres so do I really care what they ahve to say?

I think there's good reason to.

Re:Will this be copyrighted or copylefted?

[Yurka]

Nice sig. Only, the way it shapes up, it's "Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush, Clinton and Clinton".

Re:Will this be copyrighted or copylefted?

[Mr. Slippery]

sadly we are a 2 party system. if you aren't in that party you wont' win.

We're in a two-party system only as long as people believe we're in a two-party system. It's not a legal or constitutional arifact.

Re:Will this be copyrighted or copylefted?

[BakaHoushi]

One problem I have, though, is that my respect for third parties isn't much higher than it is for the "main" two. Usually, when one says, for example, "I hate Bush and Kerry," one is usually instructed to vote third party. But where does one turn when one feels that NO ONE up there is even semi-decent?

Re:Will this be copyrighted or copylefted?

[Frymaster]

sadly we are a 2 party system.

and the u.s. will always be that way because of the nature of the system. in a presidential election, second place (let alone third or fourth) counts for nothing.

in a parliamentary system, by contrast, parties with lower levels of support get to have input. either they form the opposition or join the opposition coalition or, more effectively, become part of a governing coalition and weild some degree of political power.

witness canada: the dominant liberals alienated both the conservative and liberal portions of the population (no mean feat). however, none of the other parties were generally considered experienced enough to rule... so the electorate handed the liberals a minority victory.

to govern, the minority government now has to form coalitions with other parties to acheive enough votes to pass bills. in this case, the party the liberals allied with was the left-of-centre new democratic party. the result is that the ndp now has a fair amount of "pivotal power" - and given that helth care and other social programme issues were a big deal during the election, this is probably a Good Thing.

in a minority government situation, the opposition parties also have increased power. since the the government can fall to a well-organized attack by the opposition, the liberals are less likely to antagonize stornaway.

the result is: less people are alienated in a parliamentary system. if you voted for gore in 2000, your vote was completely wasted. but no matter who you voted for in canada last april (unless you voted green, as i did) there's someone in the government representing you.

Re:Will this be copyrighted or copylefted?

[Xzzy]

You change the system by listening to the 3rd parties.

The two main parties have zero interest in diluting their mindshare. Things will never change if you leave it to them.

Currently, the sole purpose behind 3rd party candidates is to be heard. The more good points they make, the more people will question the dominant parties. Eventually it reaches a critical mass and change will happen.

Re:Will this be copyrighted or copylefted?

[Anonymous Coward]

sadly we are a 2 party system.
and the u.s. will always be that way because of the nature of the system. in a presidential election, second place (let alone third or fourth) counts for nothing.

Yes, there's just no way to topple those Whigs from their firm grasp on power.

The U.S. might "forever" be a 2-party system, but you can change which 2 parties it is.

Re:Will this be copyrighted or copylefted?

[Atzanteol]

We have had other parties in the past BTW, but basically we've always had 2 parties.

What you're describing is basically a Catch-22 situation. The 2-party system has to be changed before someone not in one of the two major political parties can win, but the system won't change unless something major happens to shake it up ... like a third-party candidate winning.

Sorta. In the past typically one party becomes very un-popular (federalists, whigs, etc.), and the other party sorta takes over. Then that party fractures into two parties. Lather, rinse, repeat. Though we have had the current parties for some time, and they are still pretty evenly-split, so it's doubtful that any other party will really have a chance.

What I *do* see as a use for the third/forth/fifth/etc. parties, is that they are a sort of test as to what the non-two party affiliated folks are thinking. For instance, the Democratic party can look to the green party members as sort of it's "far left", and gauge whether that's the direction the party may need to move in (or away from). Should the Green party start to gain momentum, I'd bet the Democrats would start picking up some of their platform (and similar for Republicans and Libertarians).

Just a thought...

Re:Will this be copyrighted or copylefted?

[b!arg]

Yes we are a two party system, but a third party has history of being able to create change by changing the dialogue. A perfect example is is Ross Perot. He changed the conversation. It became about balancing the budget and such. It has been the case throughout American history too, sadly, I can't give examples, I just remember it has. :) Any history buffs out there to support this with real historical info? The unfortunate thing is the fact that you have to be a billionaire to get that much access nowadays. And that's what it really comes down to, access. If more candidates had access then it probably would remain Republican and Democrat dominated, but these other parties could change the dialogue a bit.

It's almost like in the case of a business partnership. One partner has 49% of the business, the second has 49% of the business and a third has 2% of the business. Who is the most powerful person in this scenario when the two disagree?

Re:Will this be copyrighted or copylefted?

[Johnathon_Dough]

and similar for Republicans and Libertarians

As a Libertarian I don't think I can agree with this. Lately the Republican party does not speak to the issues I care about, mostly being smaller government, and more self determination.

I think, unfortunately, who the republicans are listening to these days is the "Moral Majority" or the "Religious Right", depending on who is describing them.

There is all too much of both parties telling me what is right for My Own Good as opposed to just governing our society.

Re:Will this be copyrighted or copylefted?

[Sj0]

Consider my theory: That the republicans are actually left-wing and liberal in the traditional sense of the words.

Consider their policies. Consider their budget. Consider the constant "everything is different post 9/11, and things can never be done the same way". The opposition to two hundred year traditions. The utter outrage at international agreements which, like or not, we agreed to.

Put together, it looks to me like someone is misrepresenting themselves. Hmm?

Re:Will this be copyrighted or copylefted?

[w42w42]

I've posted this before - and I'll post again. Peoples political core beliefs tend to be two dimensional, while our political system is one dimensional. That's the reason we have the terms "Social Conservative" or "Fiscal Conservative" vs. "Socially Liberal" or "Fiscal Liberal".

Many people vote their religeon, others their social values, and still others on how they feel the government should run in regards to both personal and governmental financial responsibility. That's why I think the whole left/right thing is an over simplification.

Re:Will this be copyrighted or copylefted?

[coraxo]

Sorry,

There is only one party in the world,
and that is MONEY

well there is one more especialy in Middle East that is called RELIGION

Not so sure if one is much worse than the other

Re:Will this be copyrighted or copylefted?

[Jormundgandr]

The parliamentary system does distribute the power to its sort-of-atrophied executive branch in a much fairer way, yes.

If the United States had a pair of consuls (or praetors maybe?) like the old Roman Republic we wouldn't get neocon corporate-friendly policies as we do now, or extremely pricey social programs as we did under LBJ. If we had a PM working under a coalition government, we'd probably have decent moderate policy.

Most democracies and republics in the world have a unicameral legislature that works pretty much as you described. And most of them manage to muddle through, as all governments end up doing. (Name one really spectacular government with no/few problems and i'll give you my house when I move there.)

However, you don't have to look very far to see a parliamentary system that has been seriously screwed up by this very same power sharing structure.

The Knesset in Israel has been seriously skewed towards the right by these same power-sharing schemes. I don't off the top of my head know when this started or the specific Hebrew name of the movement, but I do know that there is an ultra-conservative party which holds only four or five seats in the 120-seat Knesset but has a major influence on policy. How can this be?

The power-sharing structure that would seem to be the answer to many problems in the Knesset's case has worked out to make these five guys, representing less than 5% of all Israelis (assuming 100% turnout), the tiebreakers in legislation and the necessary addition to any legitimate coalition government. Because this party continues to play its cards very well, any government in Israel, whether it is Liberal or Likkud, has to satisfy a certain number of these guys' demands to stay in power. Thus, the parliamentary power sharing under these circumstances produces a shift in policy that is profoundly against the principles of a representative government.

The moral of the story: governments usually find ways to suck, because the vast majority of people running them are human. It's a tragic problem that afflicts almost all governments in the world. Except the Swiss.

15%

[geomon]

So because they didn't poll at 15%, the Greens and the Libertarians can't make monkies out of the Demopublicans and the Republicrats.

Free speech and democracy at its best.

Re:15%

[jsebrech]

Where would you suggest they set the limit?

It's simple, if you make the ballot in enough states to possibly win the elections, you should be part of any debate. Since you can get on enough ballots simply by mobilizing regular citizens, that would open up the debates to anyone with actual grassroots support across america.

Re:15%

[TedCheshireAcad]

Can we just be realistic here for a minute?

class Green extends Democrat

Really. This is what happens: smaller, single-point parties get swallowed up by the whole. This is how the Republican party came about, in fact, but at that time they were the liberals and the Democrats were the conservatives! Don't believe me? See what party Abraham Lincoln represented when he entered office.

Re:15%

[micromoog]

If there wasn't a limit set somewhere, you'd probably have 100+ people involved. And it's against FCC regulations to show people mass debating on TV.

Re:15%

[Anonymous Coward]

Bill O'Reilly belongs to the "SHUT UP!!" and "CUT HIS MIKE!!" party.

Re:15%

[Amiga Trombone]

Yes, we should allow anyone and their SuperSmallAndTrivial Party to show up at the debates and speak!

You don't have to necessarily let "anyone" into the debates.

But anyone that's on enough state ballots that they could theoreticly be elected is certainly a legitimate candidate, and should therefore be allowed to participate.

Re:15%

[Atzanteol]

Ahh, somebody else who sees it like I do.

Most people fail to see that the parties are malleable. I'm guessing it's because a lot of folks here are young, and don't know history...

The democrats today are *not* the party that they were even when Kennedy was president! And the parties will continue to change as their members change. The third/forth/etc. parties serve to show where the 'extremists' are IMHO. The bigger the Green party gets, I'd be the more liberal the Democrats get. And the bigger the Libertarians get, the more Libertarian the Republicans would get. But since we've only got two parties, neither will stray very far from each other. Extremists are rarely popular.

Not that there are exceptions (witness the civil war, Hitler, etc.), but they aren't common (and the civil war was mostly because the 'lines' were drawn on geographic terms [North v. South] as well as political ones).

Re:15%

[Guppy06]

"Where would you suggest they set the limit?"

I don't have a number to suggest, but having it set that high will eventually bite them in the ass. Winning the presidency requires a majority of the electoral votes, not simply a plurality. Maine and Nebraska currently have per-district election of presidential electors, and hopefully Colorado will be following suit this year; it's only a matter of time before the country in general drops the winner-takes-all mechanism from Electoral College elections like we have already done with House elections (yes, "once upon a time...").

With that being said, in the House of Representatives the Republican Party has a majority with just under 52% of the seats, and in the Senate they have 51% even. From 2001 until 2003, no party had a majority in the Senate (there was a Democrat plurality, but that was it).

With party politics being as neck-and-neck as it is today, how long do you think it will be before no candidate wins a majority of the electoral votes? It may yet even happens this year, and when it does happen whoever comes in third is very important, no matter what kind of gap is between second and third, because three is the number of candidates presented to Congress.

Re:15%

[ElForesto]

So where's the invitation to Peroutka, then? I didn't see him name mentioned in that press release, and he's on more ballots than Nader or Cobb. Last I checked, Nader wouldn't be able to muster enough electoral votes to be elected, so inviting him is going on the basis of name recognition.

Nader opts out

[14erCleaner]

Independent candidate Ralph Nader, who has been invited to participate in the open format debate, has not yet accepted the invitation.

Obviously Ralph is holding out for an invitation to the Kerry-Bush debate. Or else he's afraid to set foot in Florida after the problems he caused in 2000.

Re:Nader opts out

[Mr. Slippery]

Or else he's afraid to set foot in Florida after the problems he caused in 2000.

The Republicans disenfranchise thousands, Gore play some of the worst politics seen on the national stage in years, and it's Nader who should be afraid to show his face in Florida?

Re:Nader opts out

[damiam]

So Nader should have jettisoned his campaign to save Gore?

He should have asked his voters in swing states to vote for Gore, and Gore voters in non-swing states to vote for him.

So we could have an inept Gore Administration in the place of an equally inept Bush Administration?

We'll never know what Gore's administration would have been like. I'm fairly sure, though, that Gore wouldn't have invaded Iraq, which would leave the world a much safer place at the moment.

Gore lost Florida because of Gore.

True. Gore also lost Florida because of Nadar. Multiple factors can lead to a single event.

Re:Nader opts out

[SirKodiak]

The USA is a republic, not a democracy.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary:

"democracy
1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives."

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Law:

"democracy
1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections"

So, we fall under the dictionary definition of a democracy. What we are not is a direct democracy.

Even under your definitions, however, the USA is a democratic republic, which would mean a question of something being undemocratic would be perfectly valid.

Re:Nader opts out

[fyngyrz]

No. The USA is not a "democratic republic" in the areas we're talking about. It is a pure republic, where laws are made without the input of the people, essentially by fiat, where presidents are elected not as the people want, but as the duly financed and power-machine inserted representatives of the military industrial complex decide.

Oh, we do get to choose between the two people that the machine produces. Fun, eh? So, let's examine the process. First, those with money (nominally the political parties, but of course what that really means is the big contributors to them) select who they are willing to back. Those people get up and say A, B and C and D, E and F, respectively. We are supposed to listen to this, and elect the person we want, based upon the specific issue-wise representations they make to us and the general beliefs they espouse. So, many of us play - and we vote.

These people then go to Washington, or the state capital, or where-ever, and turn right around and do exactly the opposite of the thing they claimed they would do. What can we do about this? Nothing. Not for four long years, or two in some cases. Suppose we get really, really annoyed... then the political party puts up another approved candidate, and we do it again. And they do it again.

The presidential race is the same, only we don't actually get to choose, the electoral college does that. Keeping in mind that the president doesn't get to do anything significant unless the congress goes along - and that is a body that is entirely machine.

How many times have we heard about votes in congress that go right up and down the aisle? They're not voting for their districts, they're voting in lockstep, as a machine. I think it was Mark Twain that said (paraphrasing, because I really don't remember the details, just the sense of it): "There are two things you don't want to see made: Sausage, and law."

The electoral college is certainly the most blatant example of "screw you very much, thanks for playing" because the public is given the illusion of being an active participant, but lawmaking is quite similar, simply minus the illusion - lawmakers do what they want, when they want, without any particular regard for what the people want.

Driven 55 in a 55 zone lately? If you have, how many people tried to get around you? All of them? Yeah, I thought so. :) How about sexuality? I know for a fact I've broken this state's sex laws (and I'm most pleased to say so - Retardo the Representative can stay the hell out of my sex life.) I hope you have too, for the sake of your mental health. Did you know that some of these clowns have made genital piercings illegal? - not dangerous ones, mind you, just "genital", end of story. How about the "drug war", and how about fair, understandable, equally applied taxes? How about the fact that laws are often - perhaps mostly - made in trade; "I'll vote for this if you'll vote for that"; you think that's... democratic???

If you choose to live in a world of imaginary political friends, that's fine. But don't try to tell me that they're doing democracy for us. Hardly!

Do you really want to stand up and tell me that these laws were made in anything remotely resembling a "democratic" fashion? We all know what democratic really means - it means that the majority decides. It doesn't mean anything more than that, and it certainly doesn't mean that the majority gets to vote, and the representatives get to ignore that vote, or that we "vote in" representatives who then have zero requirement to do what they said they would do. Yet, that is precisely what we have here in the USA.

I guess I don't care what you call it, in the end. It is what it is, and that is a pile of steaming, stinking, non-biodegradable dung. If this is democracy, then we need something radically different. It doesn't serve us. We serve it. That's bass-ackwards.

what are your objections

[avandesande]

What are your objections to the rules of the presidential debate? they seem pretty reasonable to me.

Re:what are your objections

[James Lewis]

There are a ton of rules, but I think the most recent changes that had some people angry was that it is traditional to allow audience members to ask questions "town meeting" style. Instead new rules state that audience members will submit questions to the moderator before hand, and are not allowed to in any way deviate from their submitted questions, make comments, etc.

Re:what are your objections

[formzero]

go to OpenDebates.org. Click on "issue" if you want the full scoop on the objections. Do you support scripted debates with no invites to 3rd,4th,5th party candidates?

From OpenDebates.org: Under CPD sponsorship, the major party candidates secretly design all the elements of the formats. Consequently, challenging questions, assertive moderators, follow-up questions, candidate-to-candidate questioning, rebuttals and surrebuttals are often excluded from the presidential debates. The CPD's formats prevent in-depth examination of critical issues, and allow the candidates to the deliver pre-packaged soundbites that are repeated over, and over, and over again on the campaign trail.

Presidential debates were run by the civic-minded and non-partisan League of Women Voters until 1988, when the national Republican and Democratic parties seized control of the debates by establishing the bi-partisan, corporate-sponsored Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). Posing as a nonpartisan institution committed to voter education, the CPD has continually and deceptively run the debates in the interest of the national Republican and Democratic parties, not the American people.

Re:what are your objections

[TheWickedKingJeremy]

What are your objections to the rules of the presidential debate? they seem pretty reasonable to me.

Are you joking?

* Exclusion of third-party candidates: This is a problem because, without appearing on debates and being otherwise shut out of the media, third-party candidates have a hard time getting their message across. Polls indicate that the majority of Americans want more views expressed and candidates present in our debates, but the commission denies them this.

* Under-handed questions: Not only are topics that are to be discussed known beforehand, but there are virtually no surprises or tough questions. Answers are therefore heavily scripted, repetative, and boring. Viewership for the debates has declined steadily over the years.

* "Taboo" subjects ignored entirely: I think it is important to hear the Greens/Libertarians/Independants view on the legitimacy of the multibillion dollar war on drugs, and to hear Kerry's/Bush's defense of it. How come this issue is not discussed? Oh, that's right - its off limits for some reason. The War on Drugs is just a drop in the bucket - there are many more issues that deserve thorough and diverse debate, but are ignored entirely.

The truth of the matter is that Kerry and Bush would have a hard time defending themselves against any of the three parties I mentioned. The "Commission" (which is made up of the two major parties) is really just protecting their interests by excluding them, at the expense of an informed American public. How anyone could continue to vote for the two major parties is beyond me...

Re:what are your objections

[Mnemia]

I think the whole concept of using polling as a way of deciding eligibility is pretty morally bankrupt. I've suspected for a while that the reason for that is to make it possible for the major parties to manipulate third parties out of the contest. Perot gave them a good scare in '92, and they've been tightening the screws on our republic ever since.

Eligibility should be decided on a more legalistic basis: if the electoral votes of the states that a candidate is officially ballot-qualified for exceeds 270, then the candidate should get a chance to debate because they have a real chance of being elected. Arguing that they do not have a chance because they are not a Republican or Democrat becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The only person who could possibly argue that a candidate that is ballot-qualified in 30+ states doesn't even deserve a chance to debate the other candidates is either a partisan shill or someone who has been manipulated by the partisan shills, IMHO.

Think about that: thanks to the "system" for ballot access that has been put into place, the minor party candidates have collected signatures from tens of thousands of voters all over the country. They have met the legal requirements for ballot access in many cases. But they aren't even given a chance to have a serious policy debate, because the debates are now controlled by the "major" parties. Those parties have concluded that the opinions of all those tens of thousands of people who signed petitions for Nader, Badnarik, et al don't mean shit to them as long as they can hold onto power without having to run the country well. Nice what our republic is turning into.

Re:what are your objections

[Drakon]

Having specific topics is part of what most of the people opposed are arguing AGAINST, since it can lead to ignoring issues that neither candidate wants to talk about (Like the looming 70 trillion dollar deficit when everyone retires all of a sudden)

PS: you are now listed as a foe, because no person of sound mind can also be a republican, and I don't like people who are not of sound mind.

Re:what are your objections

[siliconjunkie]

What are your objections to the rules of the presidential debate? they seem pretty reasonable to me.

Section 5, Subsection (F) Reads:

"The candidates may not ask each other direct questions, but may ask rhetorical questions."

I don't understand this. I didn't do the whole "debate team" stuff in high school and maybe I'm just uninformed, but is this how debates work? How come the two debates can't ask each other direct questions.

I know that when I am debating things with my friends, the asking of direct questions plays a central role in articulating individual positions on the topic being debated about.

It seems to me that these rules, and this rule in particular takes away from the entire purpose of having a debate. These debates could serve as an opportunity to see how each individual candidate thinks "on their feet" and to observe how well they are able to articulate themselves on their position, but when you take away a basic characteristic of "debating" as this rule does, all you will most likely end up with is a 90 minute rehash of the commercials we have been seeing for the past few months.

Re:what are your objections

[Bull999999]

PS: you are now listed as a foe, because no person of sound mind can also be a republican, and I don't like people who are not of sound mind.

I guess you'd better list me as a foe since I'm a Republican as well. BTW, I registered as a Republican back in 2000 to support Sen. McCain. I also joined the College Republicans, where its members were planning on voting for Bush by default. I've talked them into giving Sen. McCain a chance and they agreed to join me to hear him speak when he has planning to come to town.

I also had many friends who were in the College Democrats that were Bradley supports. Bradley was my second choice so I organized a bipartisan effort between the College Republicans and Democrats (wasn't too hard since most of us were moderats) for on-campus voter registration drive. Sadly, both McCain and Bradley lost the primaries, and no, I did not vote for either Bush or Gore.

I'm not planning on voting for Bush this year, but I may end up voting for Kerrey as "lesser of two evils" depending on what he says on the debate.

Personally, I think that no person of sound mind can also sterotype so blantly, but just disagreeing with me doesn't necessarily make you wrong (although I reserve the right to disagree), and thus will not have you or anyone else on my foe list. Life's too short to be closed minded, IMHO.

American flag?

[Drakonian]

A little OT but...

How long has this American flag background been on the Politics section? I only noticed today. Does this exclude discussion of non-American politics?

Re:American flag?

[flint]

You're just jealous of our freedoms.

Re:American flag?

[DogDude]

Slashdot FAQ

Re:American flag?

[SuperDuG]

Its obvious that you're not "with us" therefore you must be "against us".

People in other nations say americans suffer from "exceptionalism" ... we'd hate to prove them wrong.

Re:American flag?

[upsidedown_duck]

Does this exclude discussion of non-American politics?

Did Slashdot block off non-USA IP addresses to the politics section? Nope.

I'd actually like to hear more non-US input to the politics section. The USA is so large that most people growing up here never need to cross an international border, which inevitably leads to a lack of knowledge regarding other countries (even Canada and Mexico).

There are issues in the US campaigns right now that other countries have already addressed or at least debated in one form or another. An obvious one is health care, for example. If anything, providing information about whether Canada's or Great Britain's health care systems are any good or not can only help people in the US better understand the issue. It would also be very interesting to hear about what foreign media report about the US, since American media is understandably biased (American journalists reporting on American events).

Re:American flag?

[TheWickedKingJeremy]

Prepare to be liberated!

How true (sadly)

[acvh]

The current "debate" system is worse than flawed. It is nothing more than a joint campaign appearance. Preapproved questions, no talking to each other (!), no followups; no reason to watch.

Still, I'll watch, if only in the hopes that Bush will stumble badly over a fact or two.

Re:How true (sadly)

[hackstraw]

Yeah, the only interesting thing that is allowed are hypothetical questions. One I would ask Bush would be:

What would you call two people that under an investigation that require all of the following to be true in order to participate in that investigation? 1) That the two people must be allowed to testify jointly 2) That they would not be required to take an oath before testifying; 3) That the testimony would not be recorded electronically or transcribed, and that the only record would be notes taken by one of the commission staffers; and finally 4) That these notes would not be made public.

For those that don't know these were the requirements posed by Bush and Cheney in order to participate in the investigation of the largest attack on our nation within our borders.

Feel free to draw your own conclusions and vote accordingly.

Re:How true (sadly)

[Keebler71]

Um... they didn't have to testify at all - due to separation of powers. Since this wasn't an impeachment hearing (at least not yet) or independent council investigation, the congress has no business investigating the office of the president. All of the stipulations you mention were specifically put in place to change the tone of the interview from being one of investigators investigating the president, to one of two equal branches of government having a dialogue. I think Bush also released some sort of statement saying to the effect that his meeting with the committee was not to be the basis of any future precedent.

Re:How true (sadly)

[jalefkowit]

Yeah, the only interesting thing that is allowed are hypothetical questions.

Which is probably why one of the first lessons any politician has drilled into him by The Experts is "Never answer a hypothetical question."

Indeed, they learn a whole battery of rhetorical tricks specifically to avoid having to deal with hypotheticals. Watch the next time you see somebody pose one to a politician -- any politician -- and you'll immediately see that, no matter what their answer, it has nothing to do with the hypothetical. Which is a shame, since hypotheticals can be useful ways to see how someone thinks; but maybe that's the reason why they avoid them so assiduously...

Re:How true (sadly)

[onemorechip]

I don't know if you mean "can/can not" in a legal sense or in a practical sense. If by "can investigate" you mean that Congress has this power legally then the fact is, they can subpoena anybody within their reach, so "can not compell" [sic] taken in the same sense is not correct. But if you mean it practically, I agree that Congress cannot send a federal marshall to bring in a President (or anybody) that refuses to comply with a subpoena, because Congress does not command any law enforcement officers. The remedy available to Congress in that case would be to cite the President for contempt of Congress, which I believe would result in a criminal trial (in the judicial branch, of course -- separation of powers at work again). Of course, that is never going to happen to a Republican President under a Republican-dominated Congress, so this was a simple face-saving agreement that allowed Congress to get the "testimony" it wanted without appearing to back down.

You'll recall that Clinton testified under oath but he did not have the advantage of having Democrats in control of Congress at the time.

In any case your reply is a change from your earlier tune, which was the congress has no business investigating the office of the president. Certainly that is not implied by "separation of powers".

Re:Flip-Flopping

[wwest4]

Tribal sovereignty means that, it's sovereign.

Heh. Bush could debate himself too, but he'd lose.

Re:"Real" debates

[erick99]

I don't think I would expect any more from Kerry. The debates are tightly choreographed and neither candidate's "handlers" are going to allow them stray far from a safe script. So, the debates end up being more about style than substance. Which candidate looks more "presidential," more like a "leader," and makes people feel good about them. Style over substance has been the rule for these debates for a long time.

C'mon Now

[Pave Low]

You think Badnarik and Cobb are more worthy to be called the third party candidates?

Get real now. Ralph Nader is registering 1 percent in the polls. He is more worthy of being in the debates than these two clowns.

Hardly anybody knows who Badnarik and Cobb are, why they hell should they be in the major leagues? Maybe if they ran a better campaign, got the names on the ballots, and polled better than 0%, they would be on prime time. As it is, I have no problem excluding any yahoo from the debate just because they think they belong.

Re:C'mon Now

[panda]

Badnarik's name is on the ballot in 49 states. He's not on the ballot in NH because someone in the NH Libertarian Party failed to get the paperwork in on time.

If Badnarik and Cobb were invited to the debates, then people would know who they are and could hear them speak.

Maybe, if 3rd parties weren't so roundly shut out by the ruling oligarchy, more people would actually be interested enough to vote, and just maybe we could have some real change in policy, instead of six or one or half-dozen of the other.

Re:"Real" debates

[millahtime]

I don't expect Bush to actually answer any of the points presented by Kerry this week anyway.

I don't expect Kerry to actually answer any of the points presented by Bush this week anyway.

Do you -know- how many candidates there are?

[American AC in Paris]

Hell, I want full presidential debates. Every single candidate.

The opinions of people like Mr. Larry J. Schutter of the Turtle Party and Darren Karr of Party-X are every bit as valid as those of Badnarik and Cobb. Likewise, they all share the same chance of winning said office. What makes Badnarik and Cobb more deserving of a debate than any of the other "Dark Horse" candidates?

Re:Do you -know- how many candidates there are?

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

My personal preference for the threshhold of who should be in the debates is this:

Add up the total electoral votes for all states on which the candidate is on the ballot. If this number is enough to gain election, the candidate should be involved in the debates. So if you can get on the ballot in Texas, California, New York, Florida, and a few other states, you should be eligible for the debates.

Re:Do you -know- how many candidates there are?

[cpeikert]

Hell, I want full presidential debates. Every single candidate.

I know you're joking, but there is an easy answer to this: anybody who is on enough state ballots to have a mathematical chance of winning a majority under the Electoral College should be invited.

How many candidates would that include? Get ready for it...: 6. Including Bush and Kerry. That's half as many as some of the debates during primaries. It's entirely feasible.

Re:Do you -know- how many candidates there are?

[Dread_ed]

You want more debates?

I guess you never took a debate class. Debate is a skill, a methodology of speaking applied to the facts that is not designed to elucidate facts, but to persuade the audience, sometimes flying in the face of the facts. A skilled debator will win a debate regardless of wheteher he believes in his point or even has ample facts to support his case. Truth and debate are strange bedfellows.

Political platforms are supposed to convey the facts about what a political candidate stands for and wants to do if they win office. As is evident from the media and the comments from the two parties no one really wants to talk about the facts or the real situations we are facing. No one mwntions that Iraq is actually a strategic emplacement that, if it is ever stabilized, solidifies the USA's global presence and extends our political influence into the rest of the world(the reason we are pulling out of Germany is because it has lost its strategic signifigance). No one wants to talk about the Chinese and the fact that their consumption is causing the rise in oil prices. No one wants to talk about the transformation of the american economy to a globally infiltrated economy and what that will really mean for the next few generations. And everyone, I mean everyone, want to aviod the real subject of retirement and social security.

It is no wonder that politicians like debates. It gives them the chance to appear to tell the truth about what they want, all the while they are just laying persuasive bricks to bolster their candidacy and leaving themselves verbal backdoors to escape from like Houdini after they get elected.

Even worse, we, the American people understand so little about what they are actually talking about (foreign policy, military policy, history, and conventions, ECONOMIC policy, the Constitution, matters of personal liberty) that we swallow what they say hook line and sinker, and don't have the background to call "BULLSHIT" when they say something totally off base with conventional wisdom.

Personally, I am not of the mindset to see conspiracies at every turn, however I have had the feeling these past few elections that those in power do not like to see high voter turnout. I believe that if there was a conspiracy it would be one of negativity. It is proven that negative campaigns cause people to become disenchanted with political figures and the political system, leading to lower voter tunrout. Therefore they campaign on their opponents weaknesses and point aout things have absolutely nothing to do with their ability to govern a nation (see the innumerable references to Viet Nam for fucks sake).

I think that it is just possible that politicians understand that if less people vote and more people are disinterested with and disgruntled with the political system there will be fewer people to question and complain about what they do in the real powerhouses of the government...the Senate, Congress, and the Supreme Court.

If they keep the eyes of the country on the politcal bouncing ball, the president, and off of the people who manipulate and control the legal landscape of the whole country, no one will stop them when they enact the PATRIOT act, or the DMCA, or whatever other policy that undermines the fabric of our liberties. At least, that is what I would do if I were them and had absolutely no moral intentions.

Maybe I have just had too much to drink tonight, but then again, maybe that is the Feds knocking at my door at 1:00 am and not my neighbor with another bottle of beer.

"Debates"

[Knightfall]

Anyone who has read my posts can quickly guess I am a republican, but this "debate" process really turns my stomach. Practiced questions, scripted answers, attempts at "humor", and no outside candidates is unacceptable. We need these third, 4th, 5th etc party candidates pushing the mainstream runners to answer questions they don't want to answer. On paper Bush and Kerry are both so equally horrible that it is impossible to distinguish between them. Putting a strong third party runner in there with them with unscripted questions is exactly what we need to see what they really are. It amazes me they are both (Bush and Kerry) so fearful of getting a question they aren't ready for or being upstaged by someone actually in touch with true American feelings that they are their debate-fixing group make it impossible to find out anything that resembles the truth.

I've said it many times ... we have got to get a strong third party in place and soon to push the political mountain or we are going to watch these two parties merge into one uncontrollable monster.

Re:"Debates"

[mcrbids]

I've said it many times ... we have got to get a strong third party in place and soon to push the political mountain or we are going to watch these two parties merge into one uncontrollable monster.

Words are cheap. You can say it many times, and you can be right. What's the difference between somebody who can't read, and somebody who doesn't read? Nothing. Your wisdom doesn't matter if it's not translated into action.

Why don't YOU start such a party? You say "we" which implies you and at least one other person. Start this party you speak of - get funding, find a candidate if not yourself!

See, the USA is politically "open source". Anybody can make their dent, and the rules are reasonably simple and apply to everybody.

Just as we have Microsoft ruling the computer technology scene as a Monopoly, the Right/Left wings grapple in
a Machiavelian struggle, swinging us "right" and "left" while moving us forward towards....?

Ross Perot almost did it. For a while, there, it actually looked as though he was going to win the presidency!

You could, too. We need an impassioned, trusted, charismatic, reasonable-sounding candidate who's willing to go the mile, and it would be a LONG mile.

I've considered joining the fray a few times, myself. Whether or not I'm "impassioned" enough or "charismatic" is an determination best left to listeners.

You have tremendous power in cable-access media. You can produce a broadcast quality show with a budget of under $50/week. (I know, I've done it!) FCC rules require this community-access television to be funded - it's just that few people actually stand up and produce the programming. Once a show is produced, it only requires a local sponsor to air the show in each community.

So, who's going to actually do it? You?

Re:"Debates"

[josecanuc]

Take a look at http://www.opendebates.org/

Re:"Debates"

[Epistax]

Unfortunately unlike Ross Perot I don't have spare billions of dollars.

Elimination of the Federal Reserve

[RanceMuhamitz]

In the last third party debate Badnarik mentioned eliminating the Federal Reserve. He suggests using the American Liberty Currency as an alternative currency that is backed by gold and silver. I think this is an excellent idea.

Re:Elimination of the Federal Reserve

[realdpk]

Doesn't it all seem like kind of a scheme though?

"I simply hand them the currency as payment. 95% of the businesses accept it"

Come on now. If that's not a lie, it's sure a distortion.

Then I go to look for liberty merchants in my area (WA state), almost all of them are "associates". Then you look at this page:

Description of the associate system

It's a pyramid scheme! They even admit it. You give them $250, they give you $100 in their currency back. But you can make the remainder back by getting more people to sign up as associates!

If Badnarik is really for this ALC stuff, he's lost my vote, and respect.

Re:Elimination of the Federal Reserve

[TheWizardOfCheese]

Badnarik mentioned eliminating the Federal Reserve. He suggests using the American Liberty Currency as an alternative currency that is backed by gold and silver. I think this is an excellent idea.

OK, but why do you think that? I followed your link to find out for myself, and I concluded that this idea is completely kooky. Aside from all the weird rubbish about international bankers etc, why do you think it would be a good idea to yoke the value of your currency to a pair of commodities? Yes, inflation and deflation would no longer be directly controlled by government decisions ... but that's a bad thing. Instead, inflation and deflation would occur randomly as demand for money changed against the capacity to extract gold and silver. We don't have to guess about this; it's exactly what happened in the century and a half before Bretton-Woods. This caused some disasterous depressions in the 19th century.

In any case, bimetallic standards are inherently unstable, because the intrinsic relative values of gold and silver are not constant; the money in a bimetallic standard can therefore be arbitraged against the underlying commodities.

Re:Elimination of the Federal Reserve

[westlake]

Status Report of U.S. Treasury Owned Gold August 31, 2004:

Gold owned by the U.S. Treasury: $11 billion
Gold held by the Federal Reserve: $586 million

FRB Currency and Coin Services:

Currency in Circulation: (2003) $690 billion, 1/2-2/3 held abroad

Consider the contraction in credit implied by a return to the gold standard. What happens when 2/3 of america's gold reserves can be claimed abroad?

Re:Elimination of the Federal Reserve

[ninja0]

Although having a commodity-backed currency sounds like a good idea, it doesn't necessarily work out. Back in the 19th century (and part of the 20th) many countries were on the gold standard, where currency is backed by gold. Although this does some cool things, like controlling inflation, etc., it also leads to some painful depressions. The gold standard was abandoned because it's not fully compatible with a modern economy.

Not that Libertarians' ideas are all bad, but a lot of their lassiez-faire economic ideas used to be the norm 100 years ago. These policies were abandoned for good reasons. A certain amount of governmental intervention has been proven to be needed to keep a complicated modern economy stable.

Re:Elimination of the Federal Reserve

[Idarubicin]

He suggests using the American Liberty Currency as an alternative currency that is backed by gold and silver. I think this is an excellent idea.

It's an excellent idea...for people who like the idea of a fully-backed currency...as long as there aren't too many such people.

In another Slashdot thread a month or two ago, someone proposed using physical pure-gold currency in all transactions. The problem is, there isn't enough gold.

Very roughly, the total amount of gold ever mined is on the order of three billion troy ounces.

The total amount of U.S. currency in circulation is on the order of six hundred billion dollars.

The current price of gold is about four hundred dollars per ounce, giving the value of all the gold in the world as about 1.2 trillion dollars. In other words, you'd have to put half of all the world's gold into Fort Knox to fully back all the greenbacks in the U.S. To be fair, trying to acquire enough gold to back all U.S. currency would play merry hell with the value of gold, and the dollar, so the numbers above are very approximate. We'll leave aside the damage caused by the economic dislocations of shifting so much capital about....

For silver, the comparable figures are 40 billion total ounces mined in the last two millennia, at $6.50 an ounce--total value: $260 billion. There isn't enough silver to back greenbacks, period. Also, silver is used commercially for a lot of things (photography, jewellery and other decoration, electronics...) and is currently being consumed faster than it is mined. Once again, trying to pull billions of ounces of the stuff out of circulation to back a currency would be an economic disaster.

Adopting a fully-backed currency may seem appealing, but it is a practical impossibility for the United States--there just isn't $600 billion worth of anything out there that could be readily relocated to Fort Knox.

Re:Elimination of the Federal Reserve

[mdfst13]

"After you sign up, you work directly from NORFED."

That doesn't make it not a pyramid scheme. It just makes it a very short pyramid (three levels: you, the associate who signs you up, and them). It still uses Multi-Level Marketing to expand. It compares itself to PayPal or Amazon, but it is very different.

PayPal and Amazon collects money for services and goods. They then take a portion of the money that they collect and use it for marketing. One method of marketing is to pay for referrals. Note that you don't have to pay anything to get in the Amazon or PayPal programs. They make their money from the referred customers, not from selling you the right to sell for them.

By contrast, the liberty program is a club. You pay in $250 of real money and get back $100 of their money. They then take $100 of their money and give it to whomever signed you up. This can only be justified if you believe that $100 of their money plus the right to exchange real money for their money in the future is worth $150. However, they don't try to argue that. Instead they tell you to refer two more people, so that you can get paid $100 of their money.

Calling it a non-profit doesn't matter. There are all sorts of ways to make money off a non-profit. For example, one can simply get paid a salary by the non-profit. Someone is coining the silver money.

Pages like http://www.norfed.org/html/silvertwice.asp are what really indicate that this is not a good idea. Of the $100 of their money that they are giving you, $40 is in the form of silver coins that contain (drumroll please) about $20 of silver. Also the bizarre claim to be "inflation-proof." What are they saying? That inflation didn't exist prior to fiat money? That's bull. Look at the affect the gold rush had on prices. New sources of precious metal (or a drop in demand) cause inflation in metal backed currencies. Heck, I looked all over the public parts of the site, and I can't find a listing of the exchange rates (how much liberty money for a real $1; how many really dollars for liberty money).

This group gets you coming, going, and in the middle.

sweet!

[TedCheshireAcad]

So the candidates that no one is going to vote for are going to have a debate that no one is going to watch?

/join #care-police

Non-troll content is low

[operagost]

I wish Slashdot had a nutritional information label, so that I could look at it and see if it had any non-troll content.

The "official" debates are highly flawed, but to call them pseudo-debates because you don't like them is absurd. They are real debates, with real moderation and real issues. Many complain that there's really one Republicrat party with the same ideals, but I suggest that it only seems that way if your own interests swing wildly to one end of the political spectrum. Wake up, radicals, most people congregate somewhere near the center. It's generally only the unstable nations with strong factions at the extremes. I grow weary of people who demand instant change, and don't care if it's against the public will or good because they're sure they're right. That kind of thinking got us the Alien and Sedition acts and Prohibition.

That being said, I'm happy to see an alternate party debate and hope it is a success.

Re:Non-troll content is low

[geomon]

Wake up, radicals, most people congregate somewhere near the center.

Then you must have missed the primaries.

No process is more dominated by fringe elements within the Republican and Democratic parties than the primaries. For 15 years I attended Republican caucuses in my state and organized around centrist candidates only to see the process hijacked by radicals.

Your rant about the other parties is way off the mark. The centrists have left the major parties looking for parties that the middle CAN vote for.

And I, for one, am not looking for instant change. I am working at the local level (school districts, county commissioners, state reps and senators) for victories that will make the major parties begin to pay attention again.

If you continue to stay with the major parties, you are begging to be controlled by the fringe.

Another, even more meaningful debate

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife and I will debate over what's for dinner, what to do after dinner, and whether there will be any extracurriculars later that night.

Sadly, the debate is meaningless, as marriage is a dictatorship.

Re:Another, even more meaningful debate

[Daagar]

Just hope she doesn't start bringing in 3rd party candidates...

Re:Flip-Flopping

[geomon]

Bush: the paragon of "staying the course".

Unless you are talking about the Department of Homeland Security (was against it, then for it)

Unless you are talking about a comittment smaller government (has ran at least three times on that platform) yet created ANOTHER cabinet seat.

Unless you are talking about fiscal conservativism (and ran up the deficit).

Face it: Bush and Kerry are the same in more ways than they are different.

Republican: a Democrat without guilt.

Debating one's self

[stuffduff]

Bush suggests that Kerry could debate himself for 90 minutes. This is probably true. Unfortunately Bush probably couldn't even pull that off; but the maliprops and 'Bushisms' of him debating himself would be priceless.

Re:"Real" debates

[operagost]

In case anyone was unsure of which way Slashdot leaned, notice that this post is identical to the parent with "Kerry" and "Bush" transposed, thereby earning it a "Flamebait" instead of "Insightful".

Re:Flip-Flopping

[Izago909]

Kerry don't need Bush at the debate because he can debate against himself for 90 minutes front of the audience.

And we can watch Bush flip-flop just as much. All canidates do it, except that both parties would rather watch the people argue over pointless crap ratherer than charge their prosepctive leaders with real questions about topics that matter. It's American politics, Jerry Springer style. Why ask a question about trade bias China recieves compared to Cuba concerning trade and embargo status when you can have the people steamed up over who did what during a war? Why question why America isn't being seriously persuaded to develop alternitive feuls despite dwindling reserves when the people can fight each other over gay rights? It is a tool to distract the people from what matters, so please quit falling for thier rhetoric and think for yourself.

Re:"Real" debates

[Hatta]

I don't expect Bush to actually answer any of the points presented by Kerry this week anyway.

Duh, he's prohibited from responding to kerry in any way by the rules agreed upon by both candidates. So you won't see kerry responding to bush either. Just scripted responses to scripted questions.

Now ask yourself why both parties would want to set up the debates this way. Perhaps they have something to lose by having free debates?

Re:"Real" debates

[AKAImBatman]

The parent isn't flamebait. The grandparent is flamebait. Why mod the responses?

My own thoughts on the debate are as follows:

- Bush will answer questions pointing to what he believes he's done well, and will generally skirt around some issues to avoid fibbing or outright lying. Expect that some legalese (i.e. responding to the exact words vs. their intended meaning) may be used to skirt around some questions.

- Kerry will answer every question by promising the moon, even if his promises are contradictory.

As for this whole dual-party setup of the debates, consider this: The panel did allow Ross Perot into the debates, and it was enough to prevent Bush Sr. from winning the election.

Re:Flip-Flopping

[stinkyfingers]

Kerry don't need Bush at the debate because he can debate against himself for 90 minutes front of the audience.

That's cute. Way to reguritate a sound bite from our Retard-in-Chief. At least put some critical thought in before being brainwashed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4 30 93-2004Sep22.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/w p-dyn/articles/A411 45-2004Aug4.html
http://www.google.com/search?sou rceid=navclient&ie =UTF-8&q=bush+is+flip%2Dflopper

Re:Fault on both sides

[maximilln]

Third parties seem to fail, year by year, to do their homework

There you go. Shovel the blame back onto those who are left in the cold.

Generally, to get into any debate whether it be persidential, state, or local, one needs only to contact the organizing agency

That's pretty generally speaking and it's also false. Third party candidates, especially Libertarian candidates, have contacted debate organizers time and time again for months preceeding debates only to be rebuffed with red tape or outright ignored. Harry Brown (US-president) went through this in 2000 and Ed Thompson (WI-gov) had the same problem in 2002.

Most 3rd party campaigns do not do their homework, do not maintain contact with the other parties, and do not find out in advance who's hosting a debate

Hogwash. Especially, again, where Libertarians and Greens are concerned they maintain plenty of contact. In the case of presidential and gubernatorial elections there's no secret who is running the debate. The only issue is getting an invite.

Re:"Real" debates

[Guppy06]

" I don't expect Bush to actually answer any of the points presented by Kerry this week anyway."

Which means he would be following the rules of the "debate." In the structure of the dog-and-pony show, the candidates will not be allowed to talk to/at each other, ony to the audience/cameras, and the only questions that can be asked are those prepared by the system, agreed upon by both sides, and asked by the people designated to do the asking (who are not the candidates).

About the only "answer" to "any of the points presented" by the other side allowed by the system is the gasping, huffing, hawing and incredulous looks Al Gore did during the '00 debate, perhaps with the occasional "Nuh-uh!" depending on the tolerence of the moderators.

Re:Flip-Flopping

[Lord_Slepnir]

I think the daily show did this at one point. they spliced together old news clips to debate President George W Bush vs. Texas Governor George W Bush. There were things like:

Jon Stewart: So what is your opinion on Foreign Policy

President Bush: We have a duty to bring democracy to the peoples of the world

Jon: Ok, how about you, Governor

Governor Bush: The US has no bussiness being the policeman of the world

Re:Flip-Flopping

[DogDude]

The problem is that most Bush supporters don't know what the word "pragmatism" means. "Flip-flopping" is a 2 grade level phrase that makes it easier for the Bush supporters to understand, plus, it sounds funny! Kerry is pragmatic (look it up). Bush can't change course (ie: the disaster in Iraq), because they'd look stupider than they already do. So instead of saying "I was wrong. I made a terrible mistake. Let's fix this problem", Bush just keeps lying, saying "The war in Iraq is going great! The economy is great! Terrorism is down! Everything is great", when in reality, he needs to face up to the fuck-ups, and get shit fixed. Bush has made me, for the first time in my life, to be embarassed for being American.

The only thing I worry about...

[Buzz_Litebeer]

Is what Bush did back in 2000 against Gore. Bush had such a complete lack of understanding of the subject that at one point he just called what Gore said "Fuzzy Math", which should have been a big red beacon saying "He doesnt know what he is doing" and instead people thought he was witty and that it won the debate through personality.

I just hope he doesnt think of something equally retarded to say that will completely avoid the question, while showing how childish he can be in front of the public.

Re:"Real" debates

[Mr. Slippery]

In case anyone was unsure of which way Slashdot leaned, notice that this post is identical to the parent with "Kerry" and "Bush" transposed, thereby earning it a "Flamebait" instead of "Insightful".

Given that Bush has avoided press conferences and made attendees at his speech sign loyalty oaths, accusing him of ducking questions has some basis.

Kerry may give inarticulate, confusing, and stupid answers, and generally fail around like a dying fish. But I don't think an accusation of him ducking questions has much weight, though I'm willing to hear arguments. (It might have been better for his campaign if he'd learned some question-ducking.)

Re:Good

[Queuetue]

Without the third parties "gumming up the debate", you won't see any debate between the "big two" candidates. What you're going to see is, as the slashdot blurb called it, a joint press conference where they agree beforehand which positions they will take, which questions they don't have to answer, and how they will argue.

In other words, there will be no value to the Bush/Kerry debate, other than to act as a launching platform for whatever catch phrases thier speechwriters want joe american to be repeating Frday morning.

And, btw, the reason they have such low chances of being elected is because they are excluded from the process. Not the other way around.

Debate drinking game

[oncee]

I'm looking forward to playing the debate drinking game.

Pleasantly Patriotic Abstractions

[wsherman]

What the debates need is someone who will ask the candidates what they actually mean when they say some pleasantly patriotic abstraction:

"They hate our freedom"?

Define precisely who "they" are and what is meant by "freedom" and then provide a precisely reasoned argument why it is that they would "hate" it.

Re:Pleasantly Patriotic Abstractions

[wsherman]

Actually, I would argue that your definitions are still quite vague.

Radical Muslims, the ones training the suicide bombers (although not always the bombers themselves) hate us because we do not live under Sharia, and are therefore worthy of death. I'd say this qualifies as "hate".

Are you saying that the "they" in "they hate out freedom" is anyone who observes Sharia law or anyone who trains a suicide bomber because depending which definition you choose "they" could be either millions of people or hundreds of people.

Also, you are playing fast and loose with whether they hate "us" or "our freedom" or perhaps "our behaviour". Another plausible definition of "our freedom" (besides non-observance of Sharia law) is "our foreign policy that affects the Middle East" which gives an entirely different meaning to "they hate our freedom".

Finally, you suggest that the reason "they" hate "our freedom" is because of jealousy. Usually, one is jealous of a scarce resource: someone else is in possession of a particular object so the person who is jealous is unable to possess the object. Non-observance of Sharia law isn't a scarce resource - it's not like there is a limit of three hundred million people who can be non-observant of Sharia law and after that everyone else in the world has to observe Sharia law.

I would agree, however, that saying "people who train suicide bombers want to impose Sharia law on the United States because they are jealous" is a vast improvement over "they hate our freedom" and, in fact, by interviewing "people who train suicide bombers" one could establish the fraction of those people for whom the statement was correct. Personally, I think that the fraction would turn out to be substantially less than one.

What if the moderator threw out the rules?

[JohnnyDanger]

I'd like to see the moderator chuck out the debate rulebook in the middle of the debate. What would happen, I wonder?

(Nobody wants to be the first candidate to say, "Now this isn't what I signed up for.")

Of course, that would probably run afoul of their agreement to moderate the debate: http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20040923/tops tories/151247.shtml.

I want to see hard questions asked. Let the candidates ask each other questions. Have fact-checkers on hand.

I want to see Bush and Kerry squirm a little bit. A president's job is to run a country, yet the forum we set up for them to perform is as safe and predictable as possible.

Sigh... Something unpredictable would be nice. I always feel like I know what the next thing out of their mouths is going to be.

Presidential Candidates

[Syntroxis]

Oh, I wish that there was a way to get a third party involved in a legitimate run for the president.

All we have been able to do for years is to select the lesser of two evils.

We have become the government of the people, by the lawyers, and for the corporations.

The "powers in charge" will never to do anything to jepoardize their power in this country and the world.

It's also interesting that our choice this time is between two members of skull and bones.

Paul

Re:"Real" debates

[grumpygrodyguy]

I don't expect Bush to actually answer any of the points presented by Kerry this week anyway.

Bush won't, but maybe Karl Rove or Arty will. This may sound like another one from the tinfoil crowd, but keep a lookout for the wireless radio reciever. It's a small device used today by many in the broadcasting industry. It's nearly unnoticable fitting inside the ear, providing the wearer with crystal clear radio-based audio.

It's _highly_ probable that Bush will be wearing a wireless earpiece for the debate. Bush will no doubt have some of the best debate people the republican party can buy telling him what to say through such an earpiece. I suppose Kerry could use the same thing, but then again he probably wouldn't need it.

Republicans are too afraid to let Bush do his own talking(understandably), which is why he has no input on speech writing etc. Shouldn't the american people hear what thier president has to say, rather than what the people who hold his leash tell him to say?

Approval voting would help

[mcg1969]

Now I personally am a two-party man. I don't particularly have difficult with the two-party system. And I believe that the best way for people who lean to third-party platforms to effect change is to work through their local elections on up.

Having said that I would quite welcome an approval voting system, whereby we can vote for as many candidates that we choose for any given office. This would allow people to safely register their support for a third-party candidate while risking becoming a "spoiler" for the candidate that they frankly would tolerate if they had to. So for example, a Nader supporter could vote for both Nader and Kerry. A Constitution party supporter could vote for Peroutka and Bush.

As a result, we could all get an honest assessment of how much support and influence these third-party candidates would receive. I would still advocate a "trigger" of, say, 5-10% before a party would receive preferential treatment with regards to public funding and/or debate access. Nevertheless, I think that grassroots efforts would be far more likely to take hold in such a system.

The CPD doesn't control the debates

[muntjac]

The CPD merely does everything the democrats and republicans jointly ask them to do. Basically neither of the parties want a real debate so they have gotten the CPD to do their dirty work and appear to be at fault.

found this document at http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/debates.html

http://www.opendebates.org/documents/REPORT2.pdf

It's All Politics

[stinkyfingers]

Look, debates are risky monsters. If Bush or Kerry thought that they were a shoo-in (say, 60-40 in the polls), there wouldn't be any debates. Why? If you're that far ahead, then why risk it. That's politics. It has nothing to do with democracy. If Nader is running at 1%, and the other 150 clowns trying to run for President at at 0.001 to 0.5 percent, why would Kerry or Bush even deign to do a debate? Obviously, the American public couldn't care less about these fringe groups.

I've said it before, and let me say it again - these fringe parties should spend the next 50 years trying to build up support from the city/county level on up to Congress and governorships. When they can accomplish that, then they have the organizaion, message, and support to run for President and qualify for these debates.

Re:"Real" debates

[PostItNote]

Really, it ha sbeen the rule ever since the Nixon-Kennedy debates. All the radio listeners thought Nixon did better, but all the TV viewers thought Kennedy did better - largely because of appearances and style.

Re:"Real" debates

[KevinIsOwn]

Don't blame style over substance on the candidate's handlers. The candidate's advisors and aides are only trying to make him appealing to the public.
It is the public that looks for style over substance. If the public was interested in listening to a 3 hour long debate on the merits of a privitized social security system then that's what the debates would be about.

Re:"Real" debates

[Le Marteau]

but let's give up the pretense that any of them expect to be elected president

Nobody said that they expect to be elected. They expect to INFLUENCE the process, and they do. Look at what Nader did in Florida.

Re:"Real" debates

[Golias]

We all want to influence the process. It doesn't mean we get to be on TV with the President and his leading opposition.

Re:PBS Special

[farmgeek]

Darn, forgot the link http://www.pbs.org/previews/parties_2004/

Separating Wheat from Chaff

[TheWama]

Oh Please.

There are plenty of reasonable criteria for screening out the kooks. One is having ballot access in enough states to win the Presidency, so that all those voters who have the ability to vote for you can make informed decisions. How many candidates make that? Just 6, including Bush and Kerry. There were nine in the Democratic Primaries.

Another is commisioning polls to find out if a majority of voters want to hear from each of these candidates. Open Debates commisioned a poll and found that Nader should be included. Badnarik has commisioned his own polls, using different verbiage, that show he too should be included.

These are reasonable, easily applied criteria that will allow alternative viewpoints be heard without stealing the show.

This country needs real Presidential debates. If we'd had them in the past, we may not have been left with Bush and Kerry as our candidates now...

Re:Flip-Flopping

[thoughtterrorist]

People change their minds as they grow and learn, before 9/11 a lot of people didn't know how bad the situation was, but because of 9/11 they learned. I'm not saying 9/11 is a reason nonrelated countries should be democratized, but maybe it caused these officials to take a close look at the entire world and see that it's not all a bed of roses as we were led to believe. Maybe the same is true of Kerry, but I doubt it seeing how big a supporter of the Iraq war he was, where as Bush wasn't nearly as big an isolationists and Bush also seemed to change around 9/11, whereas Kerry seemed to change when he ran out of issues to bash Bush on.

Re:"Real" debates

[benzapp]

Hi there. I am very interested in these "loyalty oaths" of which you speak. Could you please provide a link that provides details on this? Perhaps even the textual content of said oaths? Thanks in advance for your contribution to public enlightenment.

Duh

[That's Unpossible!]

Run for President, or convince someone you admire to run for President.

That fact that you didn't even consider this option -- or worse, think it is an absurd idea -- is a sad reflection on our current politicians-for-life trend.

Re:Duh

[Naffer]

To run for president you need money. Want to be on the ballot? You've got to collect thousands of signatures in each state to get on. Did you get on the ballot? Good, now you've got to convince a majority of the people in each state that you'd be a better president then the other guys. So lets say for a moment that you found a gaggle of rich philanthropists to buy your airtime on major television and radio networks along with print advertisements and a public speaking tour. Think you might have a chance? Nope, cause you can get millions of votes and not a single one that counts (electoral).

No one has a chance. Average Joe can't run for president, nor can hyper-intelligent Prof. Joe.

Re:"Real" debates

[Mr. Slippery]

Could you please provide a link that provides details on this? Perhaps even the textual content of said oaths?

Let me introduce you to Google...

"Winner takes all" is perhaps obsolete

[OrangeTide]

Winner takes all is there because we once believed in strong state government and a weak federal government. The idea was that states would all agree to basic principles and trade freely with one another. And that the state itself would vote in a weighted system for representives. But after the civil war this antifederalism ideal lost out, and we became a unified nation with little difference between states. Pushing control of the land up to the national level. Now you can no longer escape a crappy government by moving out of state, you have to move to a different country now.

The idea was that a state of mainly Quakers wouldn't want the same laws as a state mainly of Catholics. And just because there were more Quakers (at the time) than Catholics in the US it would not be fair to the minority if federal laws were made in favor of one group even if that group was almost non-existant in a region (not many Quakers in Maryland, not many Catholics in Pennsylvania).

The constitution doesn't prohibit a powerful federal government, nor does it grant it. People (or perhaps lawyers and bankers 120ish years ago) decided they wanted a strong federal government, and that's what we got. But we still have a lot of baggage from our times as a Nation of States.

There were certainly disadvantages to almost fully autonomous states (like slavery). On the otherhand there are advantages too. It is perhaps more efficient. It gives states the ability to compete for productive citizens (what place has the best taxes, best government, etc). Thus giving individuals a choice on what set of laws they live under.

Given the current system, "Winner takes all" is perhaps not a good system. My vote would to be to dismantle most of the federal government and reinstitute the rights of States, and then just keep the current voting system. I think most people would rather have strong federal government, in that case it would be best to update the voting system to reflect this.

One thing is for sure, the current system is strategically more interesting. It's quite simular to playing a game of Risk. Where as a fair system is a much tougher game to play, because clever strategy won't yield huge gains. Just gains proportional to the amount of work put into it.

Michael Bradnick

[greymond]

I'm actually going to be tuning in to watch the Bradnick vs. Cobb debate. I swear everytime I listen to Bush or Kerry speak all I can think about is sports players who after a major play in their interview all say the same shit "You know I just had to get in there, try my best, give 110%, practice everyday, thank my family and god for support" blah blah blah - I want to hear someone who can talk better than I write. Someone who doesn't have all the answers on a que card, someone who's not afraid to say "i'm not sure" instead of "it'll be fine"

Re:Michael Bradnick

[Beardo the Bearded]

The problem is, once you say something like "I don't know", then the rest of the campaign is reduced to soundbites like this:

"Beardo doesn't know about Marcoeconomics. Vote Greymond - because a bad plan is better than no plan!"

Same with changing your mind. I used to hate girls; now I love `em. If you're running for president, it's flip-flopping. Otherwise, it's puberty.

Re:Fault on both sides

[Mark Shewmaker]

Generally, to get into any debate whether it be persidential, state, or local, one needs only to contact the organizing agency

That's pretty generally speaking and it's also false. Third party candidates, especially Libertarian candidates, have contacted debate organizers time and time again for months preceeding debates only to be rebuffed with red tape or outright ignored. Harry Brown (US-president) went through this in 2000 and Ed Thompson (WI-gov) had the same problem in 2002.

An even more extreme example was in 1992, where the Commission on Presidential Debates' official response when asked about the requirements to be allowed to debate was, even while the debates were going on, that the requirements for that year's debates had not yet been decided upon, but that they would be decided upon and published after all the debates had occurred.

In other words, third parties wishing to participate in the debate were effectively told that they proper time to petition for inclusion was after the debates had come and gone.

(1992 was also the year Perot was invited to the debates. One would have thought that there would be published, objective criteria that the commission would have used to include him, but given that the Libertarian candidate Andre Marrou had polled higher than Perot (!) at some points in the year, and that the LP was on the ballot in all 50 states while the Reform party wasn't, it's not clear to me what sort of objective criteria they could have been using.)

Media Credentials Denied for Debate

[wayward]

As a bit of background, I'm involved in Indy Media, which essentially tries to provide alternatives to mainstream/corporately-owned media. Since I was hoping to cover the debate and some of the surrounding events, I applied for media credentials. Yesterday, I got the following email from the commission:

To all recipients on this list:

The Commission on Presidential Debates appreciates your interest in covering the debates. However, at this time, your application has been denied. Applications are declined due to security concerns, space limitations, or other reasons.

Thank you,

The Commission on Presidential Debates

See also http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display/20590/index. php and http://stlouis.indymedia.org/

Re:IT really scares me

[NetFu]

The debates, even as they exist today, DO matter:

-- Scripted or not, you will see the TWO significant candidates' opposing point of views presented by the candidates themselves.

-- You will see which team has their shit together the most in a really fucking scary public display. If you somehow don't believe the debates scare the crap out of presidential candidates, you haven't been there. In 2000, Gore lost to Bush in a major way on this alone (I supported Gore before the debates).

-- This is an important way for the candidates to address truly important issues (issues important to the majority of Americans) without resorting to the name-calling and mud-slinging of ad campaigns. I do care about who lied about what and when, but eventually we have to get down to the important issues depending on this election.

The bottom line is if you watch Bush or Kerry and pay more attention to Bush's "vacant eyes" or Kerry's "botox-injected face", these debates will never matter to you, and I along with most other Americans hope you don't cast your ignorant vote...

Re:"Real" debates

[Anonymous Coward]

"Political campaigns are always eager to keep hecklers out of their pep rallies, but the Republican National Committee took that desire to a new level last week, requiring supporters to sign an oath of loyalty before receiving tickets to Saturday's New Mexico rally featuring Vice President Cheney."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A310 19-2004Jul31.html

you couldnt make this stuff up

Debates don't matter

[sl4shd0rk]

The machines control the matrix now.

USA used to be like that

[devphil]

The original scheme was that there was only a presidential race, not a vice-presidential one. Whoever lost the presidential election became vice-president. The two candidates were expected to set aside their personal differences and work together for the good of the (then-newborn) Union, and this scheme provides some balance of influence as well.

It only worked for the first few presidents, then they threw that approach out and replaced it with the "we can't not hold a grudge; I will never speak to my opponent face-to-face" approach of today.

Third Party Debate At Cornell

[JimBean]

I thought I would point out that there is a similar debate occurring at Cornell on October 6th. It will include both David Cobb and Michael Badnarik as well as the candidates for the Socialist and Constitutional Parties, Walt Brown and Michael Peroutka respectively. Nader was invited but has not given an official response (although I've heard he'll be in upstate New York at the time and could show up). Anyway, the event is being covered by C-SPAN and some regional networks, so there could be some real TV coverage (both locally and nationally). These candidates are not really going to impact the national election, but it's nice to hear some different political viewpoints.

Re:"Real" debates

[John Newman]

Thank you for being the first here to point out that third party candidates who are not kooks with less than 3% of the vote are not invited to debates, but real candidates are not shut out.

He wasn't invited because he wasn't a "kook" - he was invited only because both sides thought he would take votes away from the other guy, Turns out one side badly miscalculated. That side refused to make the same mistake in 1996, and the other side decided they didn't need the help or the distraction. The Clinton campaign was right on both counts.

So don't confuse "doing what's good for our partes" with "doing what's good for the country". 1992 was a fluke, since both parties thought they were doing themselves a favor by having Perot there. His actual performance in the election must have scared the hell out both of them, and I can guarantee that neither will ever let something like that happen again.

Re:"Real" debates

[theLOUDroom]

It is the public that looks for style over substance.

Actually, many members of the public would LOVE some substance, UNFORTUNATELY WE DON"T OWN ANY MAJOR TV NETWORKS.

How much did Microsoft, Enron, etc contribute to the Democrats in the last few years? (lots)
The Republicans? (lots)
The Green party? (nothing)

If you just spent a bunch on money buying the sopport of both the democrats and republicans, would you cover a third party on your TV network? Of course not.

Another advantage of approval voting

[Aexia]

is that it requires virtually no effort to implement.

All the elections offices have to do is simply stop discarding overvotes.

Question from different country

[Jacek Poplawski]

I just want to ask, how can you call your government "democracy" if there are only two parties, only two candidates? Sure, in Poland democracy is young and stupid, but at least we have few parties, few more or less stupid candidates for president, etc... most people are tired with democracy and don't go to vote, but at least we have choices... what choices are in USA? I remember Bush vs Gore, is it always "smaller evil" to choose?

Re:Question from different country

[jlockard]

It may seem that there are only two candidates in the USA system, but there are really a lot more. The *problem* is that the two candidates that everybody knows about, in this case Bush and Kerry, are from the two largest and most popular parties. Many, many Americans view their vote to be a wasted vote if the don't vote for either a Republican or Democrat candidate.

I would guess the problem of popularity in the past for these two parties established them in everybody's minds and pocketbooks. I think it'd be great if there was a spending limit imposed on all candidates for advertising. Herein lies another problem, you have groups like "Friends of George Bush", which will buy advertising, which wouldn't could against that dollar amount. Another would be to supply each candidate with a certain amount of money for advertising or campaign use and tell them they can use that money for advertising and no more.

It's broken, it needs to be fixed, but I'm not sure how it should be fixed, because most of the "brokeness" is in the minds of us Americans...

-Me

working coral'ed .mov of the clip

[wikdwarlock]

is here.

Actually, your best tactic

[Moderation abuser]

Is to divide and conquer.

The existing election system actually elects the largest minority, you don't need a majority of the population to vote for you at all. Therefore what you *should* be doing is giving a substantial portion of your funding to rivals of your main opposition, those people who are in a similar area of the political spectrum and who might have a chance of taking votes away from the main opposition.

E.g. In a generally right wing state:

Far right: 10%
Right: 39%
Left: 40%
Other: 11%

So, it's possible for a left wing candidate to take a generally far right wing state if he's politically savvy enough to take advantage of the stupidity of the election system and spend a portion of his funding helping opposition candidates who really don't have a chance of winning.