An independent new group, created by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, has begun working on how to improve the general election presidential debates. The group plans to meet with persons who advocate easing the standards for candidates to be invited. See this Politico news story. Of course, the group will also be meeting with the Commission on Presidential Debates. Thanks to Brian Bittner for the link.
Let me go on record as saying Demo Rep ought to be including in the debates.
I have the only rule they actually need:
Is the presidential candidate on the ballot in enough state to win 270 electoral votes? If yes, then they are invited to the debates.
No other question or qualification needs added beyond that.
I’m cautiously optimistic about this, although the CPD and the Democratic and Republican Parties will probably be employing their usual methods to try to prevent any fairness from returning to our nation’s presidential elections.
And I agree with E. Zachary Knight, the standard ought to be ballot access, not percentages in polls that frequently don’t even include third party candidates. That way, given recent trends, we’ll usually have at least four candidates in the debates: a Democrat, a Republican, a Libertarian, and a Green. Possibly a couple more depending on the Constitution Party or if any other parties or independents gain strength in certain election years.
Of course, this is all still predicated on the issue of individual states’ ballot access laws, which in some cases can be quite suppressive.
In which D.R. would say —
Abolish the super dangerous timebomb Electoral College N-O-W.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
I’d prefer a series of debates, one held in each state with all ballot listed and certified write-in candidates invited to participate.
A more realistic alternative would be 6 or 7 debates in different regions of the country, with all candidates on a ballot in the region invited.
Forget having the party nominees debate. Lets have the individual presidential electors debate. After all, it is they for whom we are voting. In fact, we need to have their names printed on the ballots and the party convention nominees names removed. Enough with the un-named party crony slates.
Presidential elector candidates that is. Obviously they don’t become actual PEs until they win their respective elections. To do this, we’ll need district election of presidential electors – and even better than Maine/Nebraska style, custom drawn PE districts – no at-large districts and not following gerrymandered CDs. If a state has five electoral votes, it will have five discrete non-overlapping presidential elector districts.