Should 3rd Parties Be Allowed on the National Debate

Ikari said:

It's hard to say. Is that from disconnects of the political platform or because the system is rigged against their participation and getting their message out? If it were a free and open system, we'd know better.

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Do you think there should be any criteria for equal platform coverage, and who pays for that equal coverage?

Catawba said:

Do you think there should be any criteria for equal platform coverage, and who pays for that equal coverage?

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Ideally I'd say the only criteria should be being on the State ballots, enough to win the seat. In reality, that could in fact aggregate to too large a pool of potential candidates and you'd have to find criteria to go on that would whittle that down. I think you must be careful, even when noting the reality that infinite time is infeasible, that the pool of people able to participate isn't so restricted that you kill off political competition. Maybe you can do 6 guaranteed spots and if there are more than 6 viable candidates, have rotating positions such that during the course of all the Presidential debates, all the candidates will be given opportunity to compete.

There could be various ways to address the restrictions of reality while allowing optimum participation by the candidates. But it is a direction I feel is very important to push for. Political competition is a necessity to the future of a Republic.

Ikari said:

Ideally I'd say the only criteria should be being on the State ballots, enough to win the seat. In reality, that could in fact aggregate to too large a pool of potential candidates and you'd have to find criteria to go on that would whittle that down. I think you must be careful, even when noting the reality that infinite time is infeasible, that the pool of people able to participate isn't so restricted that you kill off political competition. Maybe you can do 6 guaranteed spots and if there are more than 6 viable candidates, have rotating positions such that during the course of all the Presidential debates, all the candidates will be given opportunity to compete.

There could be various ways to address the restrictions of reality while allowing optimum participation by the candidates. But it is a direction I feel is very important to push for. Political competition is a necessity to the future of a Republic.

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How does that overcome the obstacle of an unpopular platform?

Catawba said:

How does that overcome the obstacle of an unpopular platform?

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It won't. Platforms will live and die on their own accord by their own arguments and abilities. This isn't a system to guarantee outcome, but rather opportunity. This would allow higher participation and open competition in which then all parties may compete against each other. It will not overcome poor platforms.

Catawba said:

I think the lack of a message/candidate that resonates with more registered voters is perhaps the biggest obstacle for third parties.

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Lack of runoff voting makes it almost impossible for anyone besides the two main candidates to win. The Ron Paul voters are the best example. Even though they really wanted him to win, he had no chance. Instead, they really really didn't want Obama, so they compromised and voted for Romney. Nader voters didn't compromise and so we got Bush in 2000. The very nature of our system almost guarantees that third parties can't win. A vote for your third party candidate most likely helps the one you really hate to win. But a few elections with runoff voting might allow some third party candidates to actually win, and will snatch power back from the two big parties.

Ikari said:

It won't. Platforms will live and die on their own accord by their own arguments and abilities. This isn't a system to guarantee outcome, but rather opportunity. This would allow higher participation and open competition in which then all parties may compete against each other. It will not overcome poor platforms.

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But at the moment, inclusion in the main parties trumps even the best platform.

Paschendale said:

But at the moment, inclusion in the main parties trumps even the best platform.

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Yes, that is the main problem and one of the very reasons why we find it harder and harder to keep control of the government. The rules are all set up to serve, promote, and proliferate the current main Republocrat party while punishing anyone that falls outside that structure.

For the very sake of the Republic, it is necessary to fix this.

Ikari said:

It won't. Platforms will live and die on their own accord by their own arguments and abilities. This isn't a system to guarantee outcome, but rather opportunity. This would allow higher participation and open competition in which then all parties may compete against each other. It will not overcome poor platforms.

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I am not at all opposed to opportunity for political competition with with reasonable criteria. You may be familiar with this non-partisan group that seeks to make it less onerous for third party candidates, the Citizen's Debate Commission. I would have no problem going along with their selection criteria:

Citizens' Debate Commission - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


However, this will do nothing to address the problem the Libertarian Party has for example that people are very familiar with their platform, but only a fraction of voters support it. That is a far bigger obstacle, IMO.

Catawba said:

However, this will do nothing to address the problem the Libertarian Party has for example that people are very familiar with their platform, but only a fraction of voters support it. That is a far bigger obstacle, IMO.

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It just may be. But the real point is that we cannot disentangle with our current system if the lack of support is due to bad platform or if it's due to the system we have constructed that most limits and removes their ability to compete in any practical or meaningful manner.

I'm merely looking to push this so that we can once again push political competition, I am not looking to rig the results.

Ikari said:

It just may be. But the real point is that we cannot disentangle with our current system if the lack of support is due to bad platform or if it's due to the system we have constructed that most limits and removes their ability to compete in any practical or meaningful manner.

I'm merely looking to push this so that we can once again push political competition, I am not looking to rig the results.

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I have no problem with the relaxed criteria outlined by the Citizen's Debate Commission. Go for it!

The national presidential debates are a major threshold for political competition. When an individual is sitting at the debate, the American public knows that they exist, that they really are a choice in this election. When only two men sit upon that stage, it reinforces the belief that only these two men can win. But if you sat Gary Johnson and Jill Stein on the same stage as Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, people would realize that they are people and candidates just as good as the major parties. As it is, by excluding third parties from media coverage and debates, they appear to the American public as nothing but political rats who can hope to do little more than squabble over 5% of the vote.

It'd be foolish to believe that third parties have an equal opportunity in the American political field. Can you honestly believe that a force of volunteers placing posters on street corners has the same level of attention as a multi-billion-dollar-funded political machine that appears every other day on a national news network? You remember watching the Republican and Democratic National Conventions on TV? Pretty cool, huh? Did you happen to see the Libertarian National Convention in Las Vegas, or the Green National Convention in Baltimore? How about the Constitution National Convention in Nashville? How many of the Republican primary candidates can you remember? Off the top of your head, you'd probably be able to throw out the names Ron Paul, Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum. What about the Green and Libertarian candidates? Can you name anyone besides Stein and Johnson?

Third parties are rarely, if ever, allowed on news shows, and it costs huge amounts of money to run commercials on national networks. Republicans and Democrats can afford to put their names all over the airwaves through billions of dollars in corporate campaign funds, but the Libertarians, Greens, and Constitution party refuse to accept corporate donations on the basis of ethics.
Obama campaign: $442 million raised
Romney campaign: $283 million
Johnson campaign: $2 million
Stein campaign: $400,000
Goode campaign: $200,000

With the ruling of Citizens United, it is effectively impossible for third parties to independently garner the same national attention as the Republicrats. Perot was able to make up for the disparity in funding between the Republicrats and the Reform Party by augmenting his campaign with his own personal wealth, but that was before that SCOTUS ruling. Now, not even a millionaire could overcome the odds and reach the 15% mark.

This past election cycle saw Johnson on the ballot in 48 states (+1 as a write-in), Stein in 37 (+7 as write-in), and Goode in 26 (+16 write-in). Adding Anderson, who had more write-in access than official access, there were a total of 6 candidates who could have, theoretically, reached the 270 electoral vote threshold. Inclusion on the presidential debates should be determined by whether or not that candidate has ballot access in enough states to win the election.

I also think the debates should be taken out of the hands of the Republicratic-controlled CPD and given to another organization - either the League of Women Voters or the Free & Equal Election Foundation.

Anagram said:

If they are sufficiently popular. I don't think any of the candidates would've merited inclusion last year, although Gary Johnson was close. I wouldn't mind having some relatively high polling candidates in the debates, but allowing just every third party that fields a candidate in a debate would be too much. I'd probably lower the current threshold of polling, which I believe is 5%, to something like 2%.

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Yeah, I can go with the 2% as well. That sounds about right.

Catawba said:

I am not at all opposed to opportunity for political competition with with reasonable criteria. You may be familiar with this non-partisan group that seeks to make it less onerous for third party candidates, the Citizen's Debate Commission. I would have no problem going along with their selection criteria:

Citizens' Debate Commission - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


However, this will do nothing to address the problem the Libertarian Party has for example that people are very familiar with their platform, but only a fraction of voters support it. That is a far bigger obstacle, IMO.

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After reading your link, I liked that criteria just fine. It obviously has worked in the past.

Catawba said:

I am not at all opposed to opportunity for political competition with with reasonable criteria. You may be familiar with this non-partisan group that seeks to make it less onerous for third party candidates, the Citizen's Debate Commission. I would have no problem going along with their selection criteria:

Citizens' Debate Commission - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


However, this will do nothing to address the problem the Libertarian Party has for example that people are very familiar with their platform, but only a fraction of voters support it. That is a far bigger obstacle, IMO.

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In all honesty, my goal is not to have the L party win, it's to have a serious competition of ideas, in front of people.
As it is now, the system is just not honest or just.

Current debates are just staged, town halls aren't real, it's all a well orchestrated sham.

TheDemSocialist said:

So im taking a class called "Political Parties and Elections", and i was sitting in class today and i thought why should pretty popular 3rd parties not be allowed on the national debate?

What are your thought; do you think third parties should be allowed on the national debates?

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Yes. All candidates running for president should be allowed on national debates. They should not be excluded.

jamesrage said:

Yes. All candidates running for president should be allowed on national debates. They should not be excluded.

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There were 27 candidates with ballot access in at least one state last year. That seems too unwieldy to me, especially since there would be many more candidates who would run if they knew they could get free national exposure. It seems to me there should be some threshold that needs to be reached in order to participate.

Anagram said:

There were 27 candidates with ballot access in at least one state last year. That seems too unwieldy to me, especially since there would be many more candidates who would run if they knew they could get free national exposure. It seems to me there should be some threshold that needs to be reached in order to participate.

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Cool. Everyone gets about 3 minutes per debate to answer a question or state their view. This will certainly help educate the American public, add to the political discourse and knowledge of the country, and truly have an impact for those smaller parties.......

Without question 3rd party candidates should be allowed to the National Debates.

Americans should be able to hear views from parties other than the Democrats and Republicans. They should know that this country has more than two choices. The big two seems to find away to make sure a third party never makes it on the stage...Ross Perot was the only exception in modern history.

TheDemSocialist said:

So im taking a class called "Political Parties and Elections", and i was sitting in class today and i thought why should pretty popular 3rd parties not be allowed on the national debate?

What are your thought; do you think third parties should be allowed on the national debates?

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Of course they should, but what good is it really going to do? What we need is a different voting system.

Anagram said:

There were 27 candidates with ballot access in at least one state last year. That seems too unwieldy to me, especially since there would be many more candidates who would run if they knew they could get free national exposure. It seems to me there should be some threshold that needs to be reached in order to participate.

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Sounds like nothing more than excuse to weasel out other parties and keep the two party status quo. Most people don't even know those candidates exist because the media deliberately weasels them out of exposure and they deliberately weaseled out of debates. All the presidential candidates should be included in the presidential debate or none at all.

jamesrage said:

Sounds like nothing more than excuse to weasel out other parties and keep the two party status quo. Most people don't even know those candidates exist because the media deliberately weasels them out of exposure and they deliberately weaseled out of debates. All the presidential candidates should be included in the presidential debate or none at all.

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No, that would help the two party monopoly. Inviting 30 people to a debate, and I'm sure that number would skyrocket with a promise of national exposure, would cause only confusion and not allow any substance to take place in the debate. I'm all for adding lesser parties to a debate, but IMO there needs to be some sort of limit.

Zyphlin said:

Cool. Everyone gets about 3 minutes per debate to answer a question or state their view. This will certainly help educate the American public, add to the political discourse and knowledge of the country, and truly have an impact for those smaller parties.......

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That sounds like just giving every candidate a free commercial rather than a debate. I also don't think this would add any substance to the debate since each candidate could spout off any rhetorical bs they want with time constraints stopping anyone from calling them on it.

Harry Guerrilla said:

In all honesty, my goal is not to have the L party win, it's to have a serious competition of ideas, in front of people.
As it is now, the system is just not honest or just.

Current debates are just staged, town halls aren't real, it's all a well orchestrated sham.

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Exactly, while a couple of posters may want to make it seem like we're just trying to get our guy in and will go own hysterics about hypocrisy. But the point is that we need political competition. I'm not seeking to force the libertarian philosophy to win, just to give an open forum in which political philosophies can compete. I'm confident that the libertarian ideal can win on its own merits if allowed to free compete.

Right now we just have a puppet show, and not even a saucy puppet show, for debates. Blah blah blah, say the least amount of crap in the longest period of time. Lighting has to be X, podium height has to be Y (can't look short compared to your opponent); it's just Hollywood. But politics cannot be allowed to degrade to such levels. This is the future of the Republic we're talking about and without an open system of political competition, you will surely lose it.

TheDemSocialist said:

So im taking a class called "Political Parties and Elections", and i was sitting in class today and i thought why should pretty popular 3rd parties not be allowed on the national debate?

What are your thought; do you think third parties should be allowed on the national debates?

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yep in my fantasy america i like the following

a direct vote for president

3 QUALIFYING parties at the debates minimum and running for presidency.

Winner is president
2nd place is Vice President and President of the senate
3rd place is the speaker of the house of representatives

No majority allowed in the upper or lower house, at least voting wise

terms for senate and representatives match and are staggered opposite of the president. Meaning they are up for elections 2 years in to presidency.

Of course theres more details to work out but but thats the basics in my fantasy

id like NO parties but thats a super fantasy

Anagram said:

No, that would help the two party monopoly.

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No it wouldn't.It would hurt the two party monopoly by exposing the people to more choices.

Inviting 30 people to a debate, and I'm sure that number would skyrocket with a promise of national exposure, would cause only confusion and not allow any substance to take place in the debate. I'm all for adding lesser parties to a debate, but IMO there needs to be some sort of limit.

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All candidates running for president should get national exposure. The people voting for them should be informed about their choices and what the candidates stand for.

jamesrage said:

No it wouldn't.It would hurt the two party monopoly by exposing the people to more choices.

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Introducing more choices would hurt it. Introducing 50 to 100 choices over a long debate probably wouldn't. The vast majority of people probably wouldn't be affected by the candidates in the small amount of time they have to speak during a national debate with 50 people. They would just vote for the same two parties that have billions of dollars and control all the other advertising. Give the people something like five more choices, and maybe you could bring down the two major parties support.

All candidates running for president should get national exposure. The people voting for them should be informed about their choices and what the candidates stand for.

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Trying to give all 133 candidates who ran for president last year national exposure during a debate has serious logistical problems. It would be ridiculous.