Posted by Kromey at 3:21pm Oct 1 '12The Commission on Presidential Debates was founded in 1987 by the Republican and Democratic parties, and since then the CPD has run the Presidential Debates, including deciding who even gets invited to them.
The 1992 debates were the first -- and, so far, only -- time that a third-party candidate was included, and after his appearance Ross Perot scored a huge surge in the polls -- proof then of the importance of the debates in a successful presidential campaign.
This year, the CPD has refused to include Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson or Green Party candidate Jill Stein, claiming neither have sufficient standings in the polls. The CPD has 3 criteria for including a candidate: They must be constitutionally eligible (check and check), they must have ballot access in enough states to theoretically win (check and check), and they must poll at least 15% in 5 polls selected by the CPD. Never mind that when Ross Perot was included in the debates in 1992, he had only 7%, roughly the same as Johnson and Stein have today.
Johnson's gone so far as to file an anti-trust lawsuit against the CPD, arguing that they are in collusion with the Republican and Democratic parties to unfairly limit competition, a direct violation of federal law given the CPD's status as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. While no one really expects the lawsuit to change anything -- not directly, anyway -- enough noise is being raised that the CPD is hurting: 3 of their sponsors have withdrawn their support, citing the CPD's apparent bi-partisan nature being contrary to their own non-partisan stances. While the CPD still has 7 more sponsors that haven't withdrawn (yet...), they have to be feeling that loss.
With all this pressure on the CPD to include third-party candidates in their debates, could we finally be seeing the beginning of the end for the US's bullshit two-party system?
The 1992 debates were the first -- and, so far, only -- time that a third-party candidate was included, and after his appearance Ross Perot scored a huge surge in the polls -- proof then of the importance of the debates in a successful presidential campaign.
This year, the CPD has refused to include Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson or Green Party candidate Jill Stein, claiming neither have sufficient standings in the polls. The CPD has 3 criteria for including a candidate: They must be constitutionally eligible (check and check), they must have ballot access in enough states to theoretically win (check and check), and they must poll at least 15% in 5 polls selected by the CPD. Never mind that when Ross Perot was included in the debates in 1992, he had only 7%, roughly the same as Johnson and Stein have today.
Johnson's gone so far as to file an anti-trust lawsuit against the CPD, arguing that they are in collusion with the Republican and Democratic parties to unfairly limit competition, a direct violation of federal law given the CPD's status as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. While no one really expects the lawsuit to change anything -- not directly, anyway -- enough noise is being raised that the CPD is hurting: 3 of their sponsors have withdrawn their support, citing the CPD's apparent bi-partisan nature being contrary to their own non-partisan stances. While the CPD still has 7 more sponsors that haven't withdrawn (yet...), they have to be feeling that loss.
With all this pressure on the CPD to include third-party candidates in their debates, could we finally be seeing the beginning of the end for the US's bullshit two-party system?