On December 31, 2014, a new on-line petition directed toward the Commission on Presidential Debates was launched. The petition asks the Commission to invite all presidential candidates who are theoretically capable of winning the election. In all U.S. history, no presidential election has ever had more than seven such candidates. The 2012 election only had four such candidates. Here is the link to the group. Thanks to June Genis for the link.
Why restrict inclusion in the debates to only those candidates who could “theoretically” win enough states for an Electoral College majority?
After all…”in theory…” any candidate who is on the ballot in any one state could win a presidential election if it were to go to the House.
Just as plausible as the “theory” that a candidate who ultimately polled 0.99% of the popular votes nationwide (Johnson) or 0.36% (Stein) might win an electoral majority outright.
Actually, on second thought, the former premise is more plausible than the latter…by light years.
ANY petitions to have P.R. and nonpartisan App.V. ???
— I.E. abolish the timebomb Prez/VP Electoral College and the robot party hack primaries and the even worse party hack conventions.
Two reasons off hand:
1. We want to make progress. By getting into a theoretical argument, we allow proponents of the two party system to make voters fear that there will be 25 people on stage and the major candidates will not be heard.
2. Most of us probably do not prefer to have 25-35 candidates in the debates. Imagine the nuts that would get on the ballot in one state if they knew they got to be in a nationally televised debates.
The Green Party in Great Britain is fighting a similar battle. BBC initially said the debates for the upcoming May 2015 House of Commons election would just include the leaders of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democratic Parties. Then they sort of waffled on UKIP. Greens are fighting for more inclusive debates in Britain and the outcome may very well affect the U.S. No one thinks the Green Party could win enough seats in the House of Commons in May 2015 to have its leader become Prime Minister, but there are other good reasons why the voters should hear from all five parties.
If the Green and Labour Parties were to win enough seats in parlaiment to form a potential ruling coalition, who knows?
They should limit it to parties who have candidates in half the constituencies or each of the four countries of the United Kingdom.
If the reasons are “good” enough, then put all the parties on a level playing field throughout the campaigns, and not just on “debate days,” by severely restricting the toxic flow of money into our political process.
Limited access to debates is only one symptom of the fundamental problem.
Honorable Edward Snowden [Humanist] for President has been elected to the USA Parliament’s “Presidential Debate Team”. We have a crew of about 6 to 10 video producers working on this phenomena and we’ll have videos introducing many of our candidates by the end on the month.
See the USA Parliament’s current list of POTUS candidates here:
http://usparliament.org/pdc.php
Another possibility is if you are on the ballot in at least 40 states then you can take part. Also, if you or your party get five percent or higher of the vote, then you are automatically added to the debate lineup.