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Jill Stein is suing to get into the presidential debates

What's needed here is a kind of minor league election. Maybe they could run for King of Puerto Rico or something.
 
I want Stein to participate in the debates (although I probably still won't watch). Right now a bunch of crazy Republicans -- almost all of them -- will get face-time simply because they're in a hopeless race for the GOP's nomination.

Instant run-off voting will probably make third party representation in the debates more palatable.
 
Axiom_Blade said:
Nothing says democracy like having your presidential debates controlled by a private organization that is not accountable to the people. They are composed of people from the two major parties and they don't let anybody else in to debate. Nothing fishy here! :boggled:



That's the same argument as "If we let gay people marry each other, next people will be marrying their sisters, and their dogs, and their kitchen appliances!!!"
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Sounds like that, but it really isn't. Too many people/places in the US to have bunches of characters running all over for the primary offices and the more scuzzballs talking the less likely the audience will watch the debates. That's why I love having a crapload of republickers running - more of the available money is wasted on people who will never make it but want the publicity and the actual likely candidates have to waste a lot playing the game!!!!!
 
Suddenly said:
Making the debates into a clownish spectacle. Forcing candidates with a chance of winning to debate the likes of Michael Badnarik or whatever bible thumper the Constitution Party trots out is nothing short of a bad joke that accomplishes nothing.
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These parties bring up topics which would otherwise be ignored. Stein would talk about crippling student debt. The Libertarian candidate would talk about the War on Drugs. Drug legalization is a topic that neither Democrat nor Republican wants to touch with a ten-foot pole. Libertarians and Greens would certainly force that. As long as those parties are kept out of the debates, though, the GOP and Dems can safely ignore these issues.

The Greens and Libertarians have a level of support so close to zero that it would be hard to create objective criteria that they can meet that won't easily be met by other third parties or attention whores like Donald Trump.
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A very simple criterion would be to make the debates open to any of the "major parties" (defined as "independent state organization...in a majority of the states"). This would include the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and the Constitution Party. Of course, this still excludes independent candidates, so it's not perfect, but I think it's certainly better than what we have right now.
 
Axiom_Blade said:
These parties bring up topics which would otherwise be ignored. Stein would talk about crippling student debt. The Libertarian candidate would talk about the War on Drugs. Drug legalization is a topic that neither Democrat nor Republican wants to touch with a ten-foot pole. Libertarians and Greens would certainly force that. As long as those parties are kept out of the debates, though, the GOP and Dems can safely ignore these issues.
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Michael Badnarik arguing against the drug war would probably have set drug law reform back at least 20 years. Anyway, it sounds like getting the moderators to ask different questions is a heck of a lot better way to go about raising these issues than tossing in people whose major political achievement to date is being nominated by a party with basically zero support.
A very simple criterion would be to make the debates open to any of the "major parties" (defined as "independent state organization...in a majority of the states"). This would include the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and the Constitution Party. Of course, this still excludes independent candidates, so it's not perfect, but I think it's certainly better than what we have right now.
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Maybe now it only includes those three extra parties, but when the carrot of huge TV time and exposure is out there, parties you never have heard of would start meeting the criteria. A better criteria is being on the ballot in all 50 states, but I suspect that may be a bit low.

The 10% rule is far more realistic. Heck, I'll even bid it down to 5%. No party needed, so no trouble with independents.
 
I don't even understand why the green party is running this year since many of their positions seem to be close enough to Bernie Sanders that they should just endorse him.
 
The_Animus said:
I don't even understand why the green party is running this year since many of their positions seem to be close enough to Bernie Sanders that they should just endorse him.
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More of a question of why Bernie is running as a Democrat.
 
Axiom_Blade said:
Nothing says democracy like having your presidential debates controlled by a private organization that is not accountable to the people. They are composed of people from the two major parties and they don't let anybody else in to debate. Nothing fishy here! :boggled:



That's the same argument as "If we let gay people marry each other, next people will be marrying their sisters, and their dogs, and their kitchen appliances!!!"
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I support people's right to marry their kitchen appliance of choice!!!
 
16.5 said:
all three. It is a commentary regarding the complexities associated with a multiplicity of political organizations vying for political office.

That is why I only vote for Sensible Party.
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Congrats on giving up on republickers!!!!! You'll feel so much better for it!!!!!
 
The_Animus said:
I don't even understand why the green party is running this year since many of their positions seem to be close enough to Bernie Sanders that they should just endorse him.
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You assume that they are more concerned about getting their ideas heard than in getting in office. I assume they are trying to use supporters to get them on the government trough.
 
16.5 said:
Nothing says real democracy like a Judge ordering an organization to add a bunch of back of the ballot dead end kids to the debate. Plus, where is the cutoff? The Republicans, The Democrat Party, the Greens and the Silly Party are added, isn't the Very Silly party going to sue to be added? one would think so.

By the way, didn't Ross Perot participate in a debate?

Yep, he did. Game over Greens
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Number three isn't exactly a back of the ballot dead end in most countries. Limiting it to some degree of popularity is probably a good thing, but limiting it to two parties is probably going a bit too far.
 
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Manopolus said:
Number three isn't exactly a back of the ballot dead end in most countries. Limiting it to some degree of popularity is probably a good thing, but limiting it to two parties is probably going a bit too far.
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Aren't those two the same though?
 
marplots said:
Aren't those two the same though?
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Only because of the way the mainstream press functions with regard to elections. Keep in mind that both The Green Party and The Libertarian Party are more popular than some wacko that just decides to register with no name recognition. They're supported by more than just one or two people... I think it's well into the hundreds of thousands (I don't know the numbers, but they aren't THAT obscure). Yeah, that's a small percentage of the electorate, but it's still a lot of damn people.

Having 100 thousand people speaking with the same voice somehow getting lost in the crowd (regarding political exposure) is sort of ridiculous. If you want to look at in pure relative terms, yeah, they're quite a bit behind the majors, but it's still a lot of people. If they all showed up in the same place at once, you'd definitely notice. Just ignoring them completely seems rather silly.
 
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Bracket debates! Seed the top 64 (or 128, why not sell more advertising?) candidates according to polls. First round, number one seed Hillary Clinton debates Vermin Supreme. Winner moves on. Note that this has to include ALL parties. All networks wanting to carry later debates MUST carry round 1.
 
Manopolus said:
Only because of the way the mainstream press functions with regard to elections. Keep in mind that both The Green Party and The Libertarian Party are more popular than some wacko that just decides to register with no name recognition. They're supported by more than just one or two people... I think it's well into the hundreds of thousands (I don't know the numbers, but they aren't THAT obscure). Yeah, that's a small percentage of the electorate, but it's still a lot of damn people.

Having 100 thousand people speaking with the same voice somehow getting lost in the crowd (regarding political exposure) is sort of ridiculous. If you want to look at in pure relative terms, yeah, they're quite a bit behind the majors, but it's still a lot of people. If they all showed up in the same place at once, you'd definitely notice. Just ignoring them completely seems rather silly.
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100 thousand people? .3% of the population? It might be a lot of people but in the big picture it's not a significant number of people.

There's probably 100 thousands bronies.
 
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