Former U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman here criticizes the Commission on Presidential Debates for its rules on who can participate in the debate. Although there has been a lot of criticism of the CPD, Lieberman makes some original and thoughtful points. Lieberman’s article appears in U.S. News & World Report.
Lieberman is the first person who has ever actually appeared in a Commission on Presidential Debates event who has since criticized the exclusionary rules. As the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2000, he debated Dick Cheney in the CPD vice-presidential debate. Thanks to IVN for the link.
That was an impressively decent article, and by Al Gore’s VP candidate in 2000 no less. The spoiler theorists in the Democratic Party are either going to turn on him like a bunch of rabid dogs, or run about like a bunch of headless chickens in confusion. Maybe, just maybe, a few of them might wake up.
The only problem I had with the article was that he’s only for one more available slot. Getting rid of the polling requirement altogether and relying on ballot access and the Constitutional requirements wouldn’t result in a crowded field at all; if such were the case in 2012, the only additional candidates that would have qualified would have been Gary Johnson and Jill Stein.