As Americans brace themselves for another presidential campaign, USA Today’s editors hazard that the “configuration” of the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) “certainly creates an appearance of a political duopoly designed to limit independent voices.”
In 1987, after the League of Women Voters displeased the two major parties, the duopoly’s respective chairmen cooked up the CPD. Both men indicated that including non-R-or-D candidates was not part of the plan.
Thirteen years later, to keep the CPD’s tax-exempt status, the CPD established a “non-partisan” rule to “fix” an opportunity for minor parties: candidates must garner 15 percent support in the polls for inclusion in the debates.
Fast forward to today, and we witness a new group pushing the CPD to drop that requirement. Change the Rule wants one third-party nominee to be included, provided that candidate is on enough state ballots to mathematically have a chance to win the presidency.
“A third person in the general-election debates would make it harder for the major-party candidates to stick to talking points and platitudes,” agrees USA Today. But the newspaper worries about “unintended consequences,” that rather than the “centrist” they want in the debates, a new system might produce someone “on the far left or far right.”
Dear Editors, the election process ought not be designed to produce a certain pre-arranged ideological outcome.
Establishing a fair system entails not limiting voter choice ahead of time. Voters should get to hear from every candidate on enough ballots to be elected president.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
4 replies on “The Duopoly Rules”
The only thing the Demopublicans unanimously agree upon is that there will be a continuation of the duopoly. All and anything necessary to preserve that is fair game.
Paul, you should contact Gov. Gary Johnson who is running for President as a Libertarian. He is about to file a lawsuit that will hopefully break the duopoly control of the debates. Check it out.
Mike
The Libertarian Party has been trying of decades to get into the presidential debates without success and the debate commission has been steadfast in it’s refusal to let us in. It will only change when the debate commissions backs are to the wall and they say to themselves “We don’t have a choice anymore.” “We HAVE TO let them in.”
I would hope voters are not relying solely on the farce that presidential ‘debates’ have become.
It’s not 1987 anymore. There are myriad sources of information. Network television is no longer the only game in town. Third parties and independent candidates have many ways to get their message out. Anyone who restricts himself to the two ‘major’ parties is doing himself a disservice.