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Jill Stein is suing to get into the presidential debates

Silencing people isn't a great way to discredit them. Honestly, bad ideas die because they are bad, not because they aren't heard. I don't get why there's some great fear that the loonies will come out of the woodwork if we open it up further. We've already got complete loonies in some of the debates. We usually call them Republicans nowadays.

:D

From where I stand, a higher amount of competition basically just makes sure that the worst ideas die out even in the less popular parties as people actually take the time to discuss them and ponder the consequences. A larger number of voices being heard is a good thing. No party that has any desire for public support is going to continue to beat what has been publicly shown to be a dead horse. If they do, they'll eventually lose what support they do have.

I'm not saying that some standard shouldn't be used to prevent having to air hundreds of candidates or anything of the sort. I am saying that two parties just plain isn't enough to have a proper discussion. I'd go as high as the current top 5 in any given year (not a permanent group of parties, but a permanent number of candidates) by whatever reasonable standard we can come up with. Five candidates isn't so many that most people can't still keep track of what each of them says they're all about.

Ultimately, I think the necessary compulsion to vote for "the lesser of two evils" needs to be eliminated entirely. Greater competition with more choices available should help us reach a higher standard.
 
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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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Until recently, I would have agreed. With legalization in Washington and Colorado, I hope that does come up. My bet is if we get a Republican in the White House in '17 he will send the DEA goons to crack down on weed. I'm not sure what Hillary (or Bernie) will do.
 
Axiom_Blade said:
Why didn't the Democrats endorse Ralph Nader in 2000, instead of running Al Gore? They're two different parties with very different goals and platforms. I don't think that very many Greens take Sanders seriously, though. I sure don't. He's drawing a lot of liberals into the party right now, but after he loses the nomination he's going to turn around and tell everybody to vote for Clinton. (Or whoever winds up actually getting the nomination.) It's questionable what kind of progress that's going to achieve, and it could even set the liberal cause back due to all the disillusioned Sanders voters.
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Because unless big changes are made to the way our political process works third party candidates cannot win. I've voted for Nader in the past when I felt neither major party candidate represented me. The things that the green party had campaigned on in the past are virtually the same things Bernie is campaigning on. I can understand running when no one will promote the issues you want, but Bernie is already doing that and actually has a chance as a Dem. To me, the fact that they are going to run anyway and essentially hurt their chance at getting their own issues into mainstream says to me it's about them not about the issues and so I won't be voting for them again.

You're welcome to show which issue(s)) you feel are important that the green party promotes but Bernie doesn't.
 
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Manopolus said:
Ultimately, I think the necessary compulsion to vote for "the lesser of two evils" needs to be eliminated entirely. Greater competition with more choices available should help us reach a higher standard.
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Eliminated how exactly?

I mentioned at the top of the thread that I am very uneasy forcing candidates to debate with, lets face it, fringe candidates.
 
Axiom_Blade said:
Yes! By all means. We need more representation. I don't agree with the Libertarians on a lot of issues, and I agree with the Constitution Party even less, but those people have a right to be represented in the debates just as much as anybody else. Why should the corporations get a voice in the debates, but nobody else does?
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Why? Because they ignore the reality of our system and tilt at windmills year after year we should be forced to listen to them? What law establishes a right to be taken seriously just because you form a party?
 
Suddenly said:
Well, if the Constitution Party is capable of it, I would argue it is somewhat trivial by definition. That is admittedly somewhat circular.

You are dangling a rather nice carrot out there by offering debate access. As of now third parties measure success by self created largely meaningless metrics. Ballot access, showing in local races, etc. When your majority rule is etched in stone, that suddenly becomes not only the main criteria these off-brand parties use, it will be a hugely valuable one that they will focus on. Trump probably revives the Reform Party banner and goes for ballot access rather than just annoying the GOP, that sort of thing.

Send. In. The. Clowns.
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It's not that hard to get on the ballot in a lot of the states.
Only halfway logical way is if a party or an individual gets X amount of votes in the last election, or has gotten a significent large vote in the primary election in that election year, they get into the debates.
 
16.5 said:
Eliminated how exactly?

I mentioned at the top of the thread that I am very uneasy forcing candidates to debate with, lets face it, fringe candidates.
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Quite frankly, I don't think they should need to be forced if they really are the best candidates. If these "fringe candidates" are truly not worth listening to (to the degree with which they are denied exposure), it can only make the more worthy sorts look better anyway. I don't get the purpose of resisting further voices in the debate except as a device for maintaining their own power.

Also note that if they don't want to participate in a debate, they certainly don't have to. I'm not saying we should force anyone to debate -- I'm saying the debate shouldn't be exclusive to two parties. Any party can certainly refuse to show up at all if that's their choice (probably unwise to do so though). Pretending that there actually ARE only two choices is a bit disingenuous. The others probably won't be elected, but they are running, do have some support, and are legally a perfectly available choice for voters to consider.

No one is suggesting forcing any party to debate here. This is a matter of someone from a less prestigious party fighting to not be excluded.
 
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dudalb said:
It's not that hard to get on the ballot in a lot of the states.
Only halfway logical way is if a party or an individual gets X amount of votes in the last election, or has gotten a significent large vote in the primary election in that election year, they get into the debates.
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I'm all for using a modified version of what the FOX people are using to trim down the GOP field and require a showing in national polls. What exactly I don't know. I've gone down to 5%. 10 or 15% is likely better. At some point, it is possible that a third candidate does catch fire and become relevant, like Perot did in '92.

I seems unfair and unwise to use the last election results because a third party candidate will likely be only popular for one cycle. Say Bill Gates decides to get really weird with it and ends up nominated by the socialist workers party or some such. He plows money in and is showing at around 20% in the polls. It makes all the sense in the world to put him n stage in 2016. However, if he goes back to his life in 2020, it makes no sense to allow whatever weird geek the workers socialist party digs up into a debate if the party is back to 0%.
 
dudalb said:
It's not that hard to get on the ballot in a lot of the states.
Only halfway logical way is if a party or an individual gets X amount of votes in the last election, or has gotten a significent large vote in the primary election in that election year, they get into the debates.
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The criteria I like is "on the ballot in enough states to mathematically win the electoral vote"

Of course the real problem is the first-past-the-post system, which naturally forces people to vote for the lesser of two evils.
 
Manopolus said:
You don't think that leaving a party out of the national discussion entirely is intentional? No, it's not a conspiracy. It comes from the fact that those parties don't tend to raise enough money to pay any of the major networks for much advertising.

I know it's just business... that's the way the system functions. If you advertise, you also get a little kickback in "news" stories, as well... you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours sort of a thing. That also makes the "grass roots" concept a bit of a thing of the past unless people wake the hell up. Money determines everything. Despite not having a "state press" per se, a press in a democratic society that is completely controlled by money to the exclusion of all other factors makes a country and a culture that is completely controlled by moneyed interests. If you don't think the content of your programming is strongly affected by the advertisers, you're just plain naive.
I'm not saying that the smaller parties don't regularly screw themselves over in the way that they function, mind you. Getting one person elected in one district (concentrated localized effort) would be a much better start than trying to run for president before having senators. I suspect that this problem is likely all about making money as well.

Basically, as long as the press continues to be monopolized, there's absolutely no chance for a new political organization to rise to legitimacy. The internet has the potential to change that somewhat, but in some ways it just makes it worse (targeted search results, "social networking" sites where people don't actually interact with anyone that wasn't already in their peer groups, mostly inaccurate and intentionally viral political garbage, etc.).

Seriously, dude. You really are being intentionally manipulated. No, it's not a "conspiracy" per se, since many of the players are competitors, but that's sort of what advertising, and by extension, everything that makes money from advertising (which would include the debates), is designed to do. The thing they all have in common is that they have enough money available to play the game.
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And, if you are a fan of most any imedia form you should not have missed for at least the last 90 years media presenting itself as advertiser driven (many movies involving magazines/newspapers and/or radio had as part of their plot the possibility of gaining or losing advertisers/sponsors. Same for television by the early 50s.
 
And I hate the PR system because it favors the hard line ideologues on both sides. FPTP is not perfect ,but I think it does come closest to the "one man,one vote" ideal.
 
Jill Stein interview on TeleSur, the several-progressive-countries TV station started by Chavez' (pbuh) Venezuela and just now left by Argentina under that new creep installed with the usual stinking "backroom" School of the Americas methods, who was caught in that "Panama Pages" bruhaha the other day. Worth watching.

 
That was an excellent video. Thanks for sharing it. Personally, I would like to see the Libertarian nominee and the Green nominee debate on the same stage as the R and D nominees in the autumn debates. I wonder if that will ever happen in my lifetime.
 
NoahFence said:
Why not make it based on numbers? If you can get X amount of supporters, you're in.

What are you afraid of?
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They already do that - 15%. The nutbars who have 1% want to get in. Great, they let them in. Now the even nuttier nutbars who have .5% want in. Where does it end? When there are 300 people on stage?

The CPD is a private, 501(c)(3) corporation. The nutbars are perfectly able to set up their own debates, and they can choose to include or exclude the Dems & Reps.
 
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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Glad to hear it - but I did not think you were a Democratic Party person. You normally do not write like one!!!!!
 
if we have multiple parties running then we need a form of runoff so someone gets a majority, otherwise we end up like Maine with a wack-job tea-party governor who won, twice!, because he got a plurality in a three man race.

One problem with the entire premise here is that the two main parties are each a uniform single entity. The major parties have always been fairly wide coalitions. If you want to influence one you need to work within one of its factions to get noticed. Read some George Washington Plunkett. You want to have an influence? Then you need to be able to say "I have x number of supporters. Do you want their votes? Here's what we want." Saying if I don't get everything I want or I'll take my ball and go home and hold my breath and turn blue doesn't win you anything but a nice warm feeling because you're so freaking virtuous. It's basically a form of political masturbation.
 
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