Third parties get screwed over once again
I just learned about presidential candidates David Cobb and Michael Badnarik getting arrested. They were attempting to serve papers to the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is the supposedly independent organization that organizes the Presidential debates. The papers charged the CPD with breaking campaign finance laws by inviting Bush and Kerry to debate but not Cobb or Badnarik. The two candidates crossed the police line outside the debate last night and were summarily arrested.
Why can’t the CPD include third-party candidates in the debates? Because the CPD’s arbitrary rules state that they only include candidates who “have a level of support of at least 15% (fifteen percent) of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations”. There are so many things wrong with this approach that it’s hard to know where to begin.
It’s both wrong and stupid to disallow third-party candidates from debating. The public has a right to know the positions of all the candidates, and these candidates who are already afforded very little media coverage and who have relatively tiny campaign funds need all the support they can get. So when a supposedly independent organization claims to hold debates between the presidential candidates, it should include all of them.
In my opinion, John Kerry should take this opportunity to declare that, if elected, he’ll work to lower the bar for qualification in the debates. Not only will this potentially win him some of those third-party voters, but if he does manage to lower that bar, will strengthen the state of democracy in this country.
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I see third-parties being uninvited to the debates as a complete non-issue: you have a two-party system. Giving third parties mainstream air time before fixing the system (with something like ranked ballots) would be counterproductive.
Huh. I see this as part of the cause of the two-party imbalance of power. I think if more people were more aware of their various options, the voting wouldn’t be so two-sided.
That said, I agree that revamping the entire electoral system is necessary to make significant progress.
Thank you.
The debate should include all candidates who are on the ballot in enough states to possibly get 270 electoral votes.
Did you know that if the 15% in the polls rule applied in New York, the US Senate debate would have only one candidate?
Joe Mason’s comment might be more insightful if he explained why.