David Cobb to Crash Debate, Risk Arrest

RobertB-DC writes "The Washington Post reports that Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb plans to travel to St. Louis to protest his exclusion from the presidential debate. In a press release, the Cobb campaign says to expect 'non-violent civil disobedience' as the candidate enters the restricted area around the debate site." Alan Keyes tried that once. So did Ralph Nader.

Comments

Re:At some point common sense must prevail

[egrinake]

Well, democracy usually implies that you have more choices than just the two branches of the business party (ahem, excuse my sarcasm).

Anyway - here in Norway (and it's the same in pretty much any other democratic country) we have about 8 main political parties, and quite a few smaller ones, ranging from communist to ultra-rightwing. In the pre-election TV-debates even parties which only have about 0.5-1 percent in polls are represented - in total around 10-12 people.

Now, I've been following the US presidential debates on TV with great interest, and I believe the norwegian debates are vastly better than the US ones, for obvious reasons. To pick a few; there are usually more than two solutions to a problem, there are more people likely to contest false statements, and you get shades of gray in moral and political dimensions.

Of course, you always have to exclude someone from these large events, but in a democracy it is vital that multiple opinions be heard, and both the media and the political system has a responsibility for making this happen.

Re:At some point common sense must prevail

[Bitsy Boffin]

If these were real debates, I'd disagree. But the fact is that these are little more than mostly scripted, well rehearsed, mutually and contractually agreed soapbox speeches.

If these were real debates, then it's important that you bring in as many views as possible, not because the "smaller" candidates might have a chance of winning the election, but because they are the ones who will ask the hard questions and to help expose the truth behind the candidates so that the population can make a more informed decision, on all the issues - not just "The War".

If one of those candidates was looking at 20% or more of the likely vote, you can bet your butt that they'd be invited

The debates are run by the two main parties, they contractually agree between themselves, behind closed doors, as to how the debates are run. A 3rd candidate would have to be wielding an very large stick indeed to have any chance of getting in.

http://www.opendebates.org/