Fake Debates - and the Emergence of the Non-Voter [View All]

[welshTerrier2]

well, here we go again ... no need to complain about Nader ... no need to gripe about the Greens or any other third party candidates ...

they will not have access to the national presidential debates ... in spite of the fact that 64% of americans thought they should have been included in 2000, they were not ... the problem isn't just the unfairness of omitting third parties from at least some degree of participation, the problem is that it shows the two major parties as self-serving and hypocritical ... and nothing helps alienate voters like political hypocrisy ...

no problem, you say ... we have a two party system and the other parties and their ideas don't matter ... but you see, the problem goes much deeper than that ... the debates are a sham ... frankly, the more scripted they become, the more they hurt competent candidates with strong messages ... because of this, i don't think the current presidential debate commission helps the democratic party at all ... and the shallowness of the staged-for-TV drama is a disservice to the american people ...

check this out ==> http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1114-05.htm

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The CPD (Commission on Presidential Debates) represents the interests of the national Republican and Democratic parties, not the American people. Despite its purported commitment to "providing the best possible information to viewers and listeners," the CPD exists to secretly award control of the presidential debates to the Democratic and Republican candidates, at the expense of voter education.

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In fact, the CPD was created by the major parties as an extension of the major parties. The League of Women Voters served as a nonpartisan presidential debate sponsor from 1976 until 1984, ensuring the inclusion of popular independent candidates and prohibiting major party campaigns from manipulating debate formats.

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The CPD allows the two major-party campaigns to exercise even greater control over the selection of format. Candidates handpick compliant panelists and moderators, prohibit candidate-to-candidate questioning, artificially limit response times, require the screening of town-hall questions, and often ban follow-up questions.

The final product really amounts to a series of bipartisan news conferences, in which the major-party candidates merely recite prepackaged sound bites and avoid discussing many important issues. "It's too much show business and too much prompting, too much artificiality, and not really debates," said former President Bush.

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