Posted on 10/15/2012 4:52:35 AM PDT by teflon9
The presidential and vice presidential debates are sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, a nonprofit corporation that mandates that a candidate have at least 15 percent support in national polls to participate. Since the CPD took over running the debates in 1988, only once has a third party candidate been allowed to participate: In 1992, when Ross Perot joined Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush on the debate stage.
The dominance of the two major parties at the debates has critics charging that the system is effectively rigged to shut out other voices. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party nominee for president and former New Mexico governor, has sued on anti-trust grounds to be included this year. The CPD, he said in an interview, is designed "to protect the interests of Republicans and Democrats."
George Farah, the author of "No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates" and the executive director of Open Debates, calls the 15 percent criteria "absurdly high," noting that candidates who reach five percent support qualify for public funding if they reached five percent support in past elections.
"Third parties have played critical issues in raising issues that are critical to the conversation in this country," he said, pointing to the abolition of slavery and the creation of Social Security and public schools. "When you exclude them from the debate, you have a sort of ideological containment."
"Despite the fact that 40 percent of the country is independent and hungry for an alternative, third parties face herculean structural barriers,"
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
If we had a primary system, like many countries do...a third party might do better. It would take a while for it to work though...
In most countries, a primary system consists of all parties. Once the primary is decided, unless the winner wins above 50% of vote, the top two voters advance to the finals. This eliminates the potential of third party spoilers in the finals, but gives motivation of voters to vote 3rd party in the primaries....
I think the third-parties should get debates ahead of the two-party debates to see if they generate buzz and support.
I think the third-parties should get debates ahead of the two-party debates to see if they generate buzz and support.
And there is not a dime of difference between the Libertarians and the flaming stupid global liberals who run both parties, either. A little more fascist than Marxist economically. A little more Charlie Manson than Jefferson, socially.
Concern about 3rd parties?! What about the Republican being shut out EVERY TIME by the left wing, POS liberal “moderator”? That’s what to be addressed!
I like a lot of Libertarian fiscal ideas but it’s always a deal breaker when I’m told I’m a bigot or dinosaur for thinking a guy should wait for sex until he gets married and should only marry a woman. I think the Libertarian party is now including many young folks that see the spending of the past years not working but have been successfully indoctrinated (by schools, family, TV, whatever) to hate Christians (at least the non wishy washy ones).
If a Candidate can scrounge up the numbers to get on the ballot in all 50 States... Include them in the debates.
Some of you need to remember that today's Democrats aren't the Democrats of our Founders day and that the GOP itself supplanted the Whigs.
Crtics also charge that the debates always have liberal moderators.
Which is of course a fact.
You mad bro or are you arms tired from carrying all that water? Upset that someone may come along and steal precious votes from your partisan masters? How dare those Libertarians exist! Their love of the Constitution, Freedom, and person responsibility obviously has no place in our Republic where the Democrats and Republicans live full times lives dictating the private behavior of others.
The Tea Party could almost be considered a 3rd party, as long as they can continue to marginalize the party obsessed, fake conservative, Republicans who look the other way every time their quarterback does something blatantly unconstitutional / unAmerican.
Every time someone mentions 3rd parties, Republican cry-babies get their panties all bunched up and being to sob about how Perot lost the election for Bush. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats want anyone to come along and upset the status quo that is driving this country into the ground. I thought more choices were a good thing, at least it is in regards to capitalism where it works wonders to the benefit of consumers. If it works so well there, why not in politics? How does freedom benefit from limiting choices?
It’s up to the Democrat and Republican candidates who should be at the debate or even if there is going to be a debate at all.
The media having its “Oh, crap, we should have set up another Ross Perot” moment...
More than two participants in a debate would thoroughly confuse the average viewer.
Why clutter things up? At best, Johnson might pull enough support in New Mexico to throw it to Obama, but most likely, Obama would get it anyhow. If the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are just two sides of the same coin, the Libertarian Party belongs to both sides. It will never be more than the edge of the coin.
That implies that the average viewer is less intelligent than one of my dogs. On second thought ...
Most of the foreign car makers made in roads by exploiting underserved niches. Niche marketing isn’t going to get you into the presidency. It is a mass market, on a massive scale.
Anyway, Ross Perot endorsed Romney today. So the 3rd parties of the world have had their say.
Not just cars. ANY consumer item. You know that if you’ve ever set foot in a supermarket or WalMart. Point is that third parties are able into insert new, fresh ideas into the political “marketplace.” That’s one advantage that parliamentary systems (e.g. Western Europe, Israel) have over our sclerotic, intellectually and ideologically inbred “two” party system. Ever notice how no new democracy (OK, “representative republic”) ever adopts the US system but always goes for a parliamentary system. Like an article about this once said, who wants Windows 3.1?
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