Libertarian Party Suit Could Mean A 3-Party Debate

v4mpyr writes "The lawsuit initiated by the Arizona Libertarian Party against the ASU and CPD has been successfully scheduled for a hearing. If the CPD cannot present a decent case for excluding Michael Badnarik from a private debate funded by public sources, they will have to exercise one two options: Let Michael Badnarik debate this Wednesday or reschedule and relocate the debate. Either way it will be a major win for the third parties. The official press release can be found here."

Comments

I seriously doubt the courts will allow this

[Dh2000]

They'll just put off the judegement until after the debate

Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this

[gl4ss]

if they did that, wouldn't it put the election itself in questionable position of being 'fair' or not?

Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this

[SandiConoverJones]

Would you really want 3rd party candidates, the candidates who clearly state their positions on the issues to mess with the Democrats and Republicans with their meaningless, but well rehearsed sound bites? What would happen, if in a a debate, a candidate took a stand? {gasp} Would our entire country fall to ruin? Or, might it force the other candidates to answer a question?

Just where in the constitution does it say that we have a 2 party system, and that those two parties should be the Democrats and Republicans?

As for the wasted vote argument, so you should choose your lesser of evils candidate, remember, if you choose the lesser of evils, you have still chosen evil. Vote your mind, and your conscience. If you always settle for a lesser of evils, how do they know that you are dissatisfied with the status-quo? Or are you happy with the lack of choice that we are suffering with if you only consider Kerry and Bush to be the only valid, viable candidates?

How many people are on the ballot in your state? http://www.politics1.com/p2004-ballots.htm this site should list who has ballot access in your state. In my state, Ohio, there were 8 names to choose from on the 2000 ballot. (If you don't believe me, I'll make it easy for you to check my facts: http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos//results/index.html ) Why should the choice only come down to 2 candidates with 8 people who went to the effort to gain ballot access?

The mainstream press actively avoids reporting on 3rd party candidates. When a presidetial candidate passes though a city 6 times during the campaign, and 2 daily newspapers, and 4 local television channels completely ignore the visits? People were there to greet the candidate, but not a press member to be found, hmm... this smacks of collusion with the press and the Democrats and Republicans.

What we need to fight for is better coverage of the other people who will appear on the ballots of our respective states. If airing the news is an FCC required service of broadcasters, how about equal time for all of the eligible candidates? Oh Horrors! What a concept! Let the people hear of the people on the ballot before they draw the curtain? This would hardly be fair to the powers that be! People might consider voting for someone other than a Democrat or Republican.

We complain about crooked elections in other countries. They can't get much more closed, and crooked than our own.

Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this

[Shakrai]

Just where in the constitution does it say that we have a 2 party system, and that those two parties should be the Democrats and Republicans?

Just where in the constitution does it say that we need to have a Presidential debate at all -- let alone that every little party needs to be included in said debate?

As for the wasted vote argument, so you should choose your lesser of evils candidate, remember, if you choose the lesser of evils, you have still chosen evil. Vote your mind, and your conscience.

I don't consider Kerry to be the "lesser of two evils" vote. Perhaps you disagree with me. I genuinely like and support the guy but I suppose YMMV. As for the argument of "There's no real difference between the parties" I'm sick and tired of hearing it. I suppose it's good for a cheap +5 on Slashdot but if you bothered to read any major newspaper you'd see that there are huge differences between Democrats and Republicans on any number of issues including foreign policy, abortion, stem cell research, tax policy, the direction of our Federal judiciary, economic policy, military posture, missile defense, homeland security, religion in government, environmental policy, social security etc etc.

These are huge policy differences but all people around here (and the third-party candidates) can focus on are the glaringly obvious mistakes that they both supported (DCMA) without even considering the fact that this is symptomatic of lazy Congressman who don't read bills or understand the issues more then any vast DNC/RNC plan to slice up the country.

Now I've never suggested that a vote for a third-party is a wasted vote. I have suggested that if you are a Green and you truly care about your platform this might not be the best election in the World in which to cast that vote. Even the Green Party itself has said as much. If you happen to be a Libertarian then I suppose you won't like Bush (he isn't a true conservative by any means) and you certainly aren't going to like Kerry -- so by all means vote for your guy.

We complain about crooked elections in other countries. They can't get much more closed, and crooked than our own.

Really? Anyone with the right organization and name recognition stands as good a chance as anybody else of being elected. Ross Parot stood a very good shot until he foolishly dropped out the race only to toss his hat back in later. He wasn't excluded from the debates. He shot himself in the foot -- his was the best third-party campaign since Teddy Roosevelt.

It would also be fair to point out that in American Politics (at least where the Presidency is concerned) the maverick usually loses. It doesn't even need to be a third-party person. Ask the John McCains and Howard Deans of the World how their Presidential campaigns worked out. McCain's loss you might be able to blame on the party establishment (not to mention the oh so lovely tactics Karl Rove used against him) -- but Dean had the effective support of large portions of the Democratic establishment and the primary voters still overwhelmingly picked Kerry. The mavericks and third parties do serve a purpose -- they set the tone of the debate and ensure that important issues (campaign finance in McCains case) aren't swept under the rug. But when push comes to shove the American people usually go with the mainstream and/or more experienced candidate.

Re:I seriously doubt the courts will allow this

[Shakrai]

some more direct democracy in our government might do wonders

We don't need direct democracy. Direct democracy is scary and ineffective. Ever hear of the tyranny of the majority?

What we need is people interested in politics again. Especially local and state politics. You advocate direct democracy -- can you name your Assemblyman or even Mayor? Can you name a local school board member? Can you name your County Executive or the legislator from your district?

I'd bet money that most of the people on /. can't name a majority of those people -- and a good portion of the /. readership couldn't name any of them. I'd dare say that most of the /. readership is more into politics then the average American -- so what does that say about most other Americans?

Re:I know one reason to exclude him.

[dh003i]

firstly, the libertarian party is the largest 3rd party. And your suggestion is ridiculous hysteria. If we let a third person in the debate, why not just have a 400 person debate is a ludacrous leap. Maybe the top 4 contendors, or whatever.

Locking out third parties permanently prevents them from getting elected, as they can't even bring up the issues which our two Socialist parties -- the communists on the left and the fascists on the right -- won't bother with or are in agreement with eachother on. There is very little significant difference between a Dem and a Rep.: both don't think that people are capable of running their own lives, and think that they're better fit to run everyone's lives than everyone else is fit to run their own lives.

The importance here is it allows for a real debate, and for topics to be brought up that may start eroding at the cartel Dems and Republicans have created to systematically keep third parties out of contention.

Re:Bad Idea

[v4mpyr]

Actually, all you need to have a chance of winning is to be on enough ballots to potentially win 270 electoral votes. There are six candidates who meet that qualification this year:

# Badnarik
# Bush
# Cobb
# Kerry
# Nader
# Peroutka

IMHO they should all be allowed to debate if they can rustle up enough support to make it on the ballots. The second requirement, high polling, is irrelevant because of it does not accurately represent the will of the people. That part should be eliminated.

Re:Why does Slashdot...

[v4mpyr]

One of my favourite 'wasted vote' arguments is as follows:

Pretend you are in jail on death row. You find that you have a 50% chance of lethal injection, 45% chance of the electric chair, or 5% chance of escape... which would you vote for?

Statistics has nothing to do with it. People need to realize that you don't have to vote based on who is most popular or who has the highest chance of winning. The point of voting is to vote for the person you think is right for the job, regardless of what your neighbor says.

Re:What?

[SandiConoverJones]

The university is taking political sides by alowing the Dems and Repubs to express their views, on the campus, on gov't funds, while denying another valid candidates the same right. In effect, the university is ENDORSING Kerry and Bush, at the expense of the other 4 candidates on the ballot.

Re:For a moment

[pocopoco]

>prevent discussion on the subject of which
>of the two major-party candidates

Have you even been watching the debates? The candidates pretty much have pre-worked out spiels and just go through them when a question is even close. Sometimes you'll notice they completely miss answering the question or end up repeating one of them and trying to hide it. There's no discussion going on here.

Adding an "unplanned random factor" as you call it might get some decent telling responses from candidates instead of having us sit through more of the same "say what they want to hear and hide the rest" spiels as we've been getting in speeches.

Re:For a moment

[mcc]

As for the "don't tax, don't spend," THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT! When people have the cash in their pocket and it doesn't go to the IRS, then THEY have economic control. What sane person doesn't want that?

Supporters of the welfare system, supporters of state-sponsored education, supporters of the freeway system, people who believe the U.S. military does some degree of good in the world, people who believe U.S. foreign aid does some degree of good in the world, and some other people. I could probably go on if you'd like.

There is, in fact, a middle ground between anarchocapitalist libertarianism and "insane" "statist"s, as you put it, and most of America is in this middle ground. The idea that the government performing functions rather than the public sector is inherently bad all the time is something which perhaps is sound as political theory, but it is not something which is a plurality political viewpoint within the united states.

The ideoloigical left is not as you think. In 2000 their issues were environmentalism and anti-globalism. In 2004 their issues are anti-war and anti-globalism, both of which put them into the ABB camp, but also makes them mistakenly support Kerry instead when he is no better, and most of them haven't figured that out yet. Badnaik is what they want on both counts, and he wants to make sure the sovereignty of the US is not compromised militarily nor economically. Neither Bush not Kerry can truthfully make that claim. But since they are both liars I expect them to.

No, having followed the ideological left very closely for the last four years I can tell you that this is definitely not the case. There has been a certain degree of issues shift within the ideological left but on all of the ideological left's issues except personal liberty there is definitely a consensus that Kerry is better than Bush, if only slightly. The only question within this group is whether Kerry is better enough on these issues to justify supporting him. This is a question that has been debated fiercely for about the last six months straight. If you believe that it just hasn't occurred to the far left that Kerry might be a flawed candidate and Badnarik is going to wake them up to this, you are deeply mistaken. No one in the ideological left is viewing Kerry through rose-colored glasses. At best (best for Kerry, I mean, of course) they are realistically facing the idea that either Kerry or Bush is going to win this election and they can help either one or the other.

Again, in 2000 the ideological left was faced with a democratic candidate who from their viewpoint could not be differentiated from the republican candidate, and so they abandoned in great numbers. The entire focus of the 2000 Green Party Nader campaign was on pointing out that the two parties were too close and that Gore was no better than Bush, and the left needed to split off and vote third party in order to remind the democrats not to ignore their base. This was a line the ideological left bought at the time. Since then Bush has proven no, he is in fact worse than Gore would have been, and the Democratic party did not as hoped freak out and start recognizing its base-- in fact if anything it's shifted further to the right, seemingly mistaking losses caused by a disillusioned base for losses caused by a national trend toward conservatism. Pretty much all of the people who supported the Greens in 2000-- which is pretty much all potential far-left voters in 2004-- recognize this has happened, and they are not interested in repeating 2000 again this year. The Greens could very certainly make a serious contention as a third party candidate this year if they desired. They are not trying. There is a reason for this.

Meanwhile, personal liberty, the war in Iraq, and reform of the electoral system are virtually the only areas in which the ideological left agrees with Badnarik. The ideological left has been loudest about the wars against Iraq and personal freedom in the last four years,