WHY ARE MINORITY PARTIES EXCLUDED FROM PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES

[Harry Bosch]

The interesting thing is that there are a lot of dems who are against third parties because it's hurt us so bad. It's cost us an election and supreme court. But it appears that there is a strong chance that the reps could be split as the Trumpinites split from the conventional republican party. If that were the case, it could be that a stronger potential for third party could hurt the reps in 2020.

 

[untermensche]

Your presumption that, had he been admitted as an audience member, he would have said nothing and done nothing is unfounded.

They expected him to be disruptive, and excercised their right to deny him access.

If his plan was to say and do nothing, then his exclusion did him no harm - he could equally well say and do nothing in front of the TV in his hotel room.

Utter nonsense pulled from thin air.

The man has no history of disruption.

He is one of the most articulate and knowledgeable people in the country.

It is an insane assumption that he would deliberately do something disruptive.

Totally insane!

The only thing Nader might possibly have done is give his opinions of the debate to the press so that many people might hear them.

Since that is all he could have done that is all that they could have feared.

Tyrants are always in fear their absolute power may be questioned.

 

[SimpleDon]

Under the current system, such candidates are not excluded - unless their chances are vanishingly small, which they always are. (The rule is that to be included, a candidate needs to poll above 15% in at least five opinion polls).

When they have less than 15% support, what they have to say is just irrelevant noise. The voters have enough bullshit to dig through as it is, without adding a third or fourth political bullshitter to the mix.

1. Locking them out of the debates is a big reason WHY they are under 15% support. If they were in allowed in the debates those numbers would likely be considerably higher.

More often than not the opposite is true. The support for the third party candidates comes from the disgust that the voters have for the two main party candidates, such as this year. But when the third party candidates positions are examined closely it becomes obvious why they are a minority party, because they don't have a clue how government works or how weak their policy positions are.

The Libertarian Johnson believes that we should take the long term view of global warming, in some billion years the sun will expand to engulf the earth. And the Libertarians are the foremost believers in the faith of the never before seen self-regulating free market. Their assertion that the economy would operate better with minimal government involvement goes against all of history, highlighted most recently by the Great Financial Crisis caused by the government's ideological induced failure to regulate the banks.

Jill Stein's signature policy proposal is as president she will order the Fed to bailout the people having to pay back their combined over 1.5 trillion dollar student loan debt. The president can't order the Fed to do that. Besides, the student loan debt problem requires a better long term solution than a single massive bailout. Private debt is a massive problem for the economy because it destabilizes the economy.

2. Even if their chances are minimal, their voices can still be extremely valuable, because they can elicit responses form the main contenders. There are many issues that go completely unmentioned in these debates. But if one of the minority parties had one of these issues as their main platform point, then the main parties would be forced to take a position on them.

Do you have an example of an issue raised by a third party that isn't addressed by at least one of the major parties?

Granted, Trump and the Republican party don't address a number of issues, for example, Global Warming, income inequality and the student loan problem, among others, not too surprising since they created a lot of the problems that need to be corrected. I suppose that their party default position of "no" is suppose to cover the issues that they don't address.

How about allowing the minority parties into the debate but allocating questions/time to them based on their support? If you are polling very low you only get to show up for a few minutes, basically as a guest speaker in the debate for your primary issue, and then you're not there for the next segment?

A proposal that no one will agree to.

 

[whichphilosophy]

1. Locking them out of the debates is a big reason WHY they are under 15% support. If they were in allowed in the debates those numbers would likely be considerably higher.

More often than not the opposite is true. The support for the third party candidates comes from the disgust that the voters have for the two main party candidates, such as this year. But when the third party candidates positions are examined closely it becomes obvious why they are a minority party, because they don't have a clue how government works or how weak their policy positions are.

The Libertarian Johnson believes that we should take the long term view of global warming, in some billion years the sun will expand to engulf the earth. And the Libertarians are the foremost believers in the faith of the never before seen self-regulating free market. Their assertion that the economy would operate better with minimal government involvement goes against all of history, highlighted most recently by the Great Financial Crisis caused by the government's ideological induced failure to regulate the banks.

Jill Stein's signature policy proposal is as president she will order the Fed to bailout the people having to pay back their combined over 1.5 trillion dollar student loan debt. The president can't order the Fed to do that. Besides, the student loan debt problem requires a better long term solution than a single massive bailout. Private debt is a massive problem for the economy because it destabilizes the economy.

2. Even if their chances are minimal, their voices can still be extremely valuable, because they can elicit responses form the main contenders. There are many issues that go completely unmentioned in these debates. But if one of the minority parties had one of these issues as their main platform point, then the main parties would be forced to take a position on them.

Do you have an example of an issue raised by a third party that isn't addressed by at least one of the major parties?

Granted, Trump and the Republican party don't address a number of issues, for example, Global Warming, income inequality and the student loan problem, among others, not too surprising since they created a lot of the problems that need to be corrected. I suppose that their party default position of "no" is suppose to cover the issues that they don't address.

How about allowing the minority parties into the debate but allocating questions/time to them based on their support? If you are polling very low you only get to show up for a few minutes, basically as a guest speaker in the debate for your primary issue, and then you're not there for the next segment?

A proposal that no one will agree to.

The US one party state is in fact a split between the Republican right and the Democratic Party Left, but they tend to overlap.
It’s not clear what is meant by weak policy positions or how governments work. This is a matter of opinion and should be debated. The Democrats and Republican call each other’s policies impractical weak and useless.
Further by their track record the Democrats and Republicans seem to know how governments don’t work.
The leaders are not involved in government as this is pretty run by public servants no matter who is elected.

Not so long ago the Greens were the tin foilers who talked about global warming which is now only a few think this is not serious.
Worldwide Nuclear Energy projects have slowed down, due to high maintenance and construction costs.

The average time to build a nuclear production facility is about 7 to 8 years.

Investment in renewable energy is still small compared to Oil and Gas but is rising. Research is underway to make this more cost effective.
Financial crisis was caused by the government policies on banks as was the great depression and other slumps.
So Jill Stein wants to bail out US$1.5 trillion which I have not seen yet. Yet it’s okay to bail out the Banksters each time the market collapses and to spend trillions on warmongering in the Middle East.

Considering the National debt is skyrocketing at over One Trillion per year and rising, bailing out the students is chicken-feed.
Obama borrowed billions to fund Obama Care which is in principle a good idea but funding must come from somewhere. Cuba meanwhile has provided free healthcare and education almost since Castro first took power, but this is a taboo subject.

 

[bilby]

Your presumption that, had he been admitted as an audience member, he would have said nothing and done nothing is unfounded.

They expected him to be disruptive, and excercised their right to deny him access.

If his plan was to say and do nothing, then his exclusion did him no harm - he could equally well say and do nothing in front of the TV in his hotel room.

Utter nonsense pulled from thin air.

The man has no history of disruption.

He is one of the most articulate and knowledgeable people in the country.

It is an insane assumption that he would deliberately do something disruptive.

Totally insane!

The only thing Nader might possibly have done is give his opinions of the debate to the press so that many people might hear them.

Since that is all he could have done that is all that they could have feared.

Tyrants are always in fear their absolute power may be questioned.

Again, he could, AND DID, give his opinions to the press, after watching the debate on TV.

His freedom of speech was in no way infringed; all that happened was that he was refused admission to an event that was organised by somebody else.

He has complete freedom of speech. That doesn't give him a right to a platform, nor a right to a place in the live audience. His exclusion from the audience didn't harm him one bit - unless he planned to be disruptive, which you say he did not. So what harm was done to him? What actual right was he denied?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Utter nonsense pulled from thin air.

The man has no history of disruption.

He is one of the most articulate and knowledgeable people in the country.

It is an insane assumption that he would deliberately do something disruptive.

Totally insane!

The only thing Nader might possibly have done is give his opinions of the debate to the press so that many people might hear them.

Since that is all he could have done that is all that they could have feared.

Tyrants are always in fear their absolute power may be questioned.

Again, he could, AND DID, give his opinions to the press, after watching the debate on TV.

His freedom of speech was in no way infringed; all that happened was that he was refused admission to an event that was organised by somebody else.

He has complete freedom of speech. That doesn't give him a right to a platform, nor a right to a place in the live audience. His exclusion from the audience didn't harm him one bit - unless he planned to be disruptive, which you say he did not. So what harm was done to him? What actual right was he denied?

Actually, his presence would have been disruptive in exactly the way you don't want to admit it would be - people would see him there and realize he was excluded from being on stage. His presence would have been a reminder to everyone present that they aren't getting all sides. Plus occasionally the press would have panned over to him to see if he's making any sort of faces when questions relevant to his candidacy are asked. "They just asked about global warming, look, Nader is frowning."

That is exactly the disruption the major parties feared, that is exactly the disruption you are referring to, and I've just stated it plainly.

 

[arkirk]

Your presumption that, had he been admitted as an audience member, he would have said nothing and done nothing is unfounded.

They expected him to be disruptive, and excercised their right to deny him access.

If his plan was to say and do nothing, then his exclusion did him no harm - he could equally well say and do nothing in front of the TV in his hotel room.

Utter nonsense pulled from thin air.

The man has no history of disruption.

He is one of the most articulate and knowledgeable people in the country.

It is an insane assumption that he would deliberately do something disruptive.

Totally insane!

The only thing Nader might possibly have done is give his opinions of the debate to the press so that many people might hear them.

Since that is all he could have done that is all that they could have feared.

Tyrants are always in fear their absolute power may be questioned.

Bilby does this all the time, creating straw men and straw threats. The truth is that the election was LOST BY A LIFELESS LACK LUSTER AL GORE ALL ON HIS OWN. It was his inept campaigning and nothing else that cost him the election. What is more, we would not necessarily have had any better from Gore than Dubbiya.

Nader has not ever disrupted any public meeting I know of. He was that year, the only man running for president who had saved thousands of American lives through his efforts at consumer protection. The other boobs...well Bush for example....killed Americans and Iraqis and Afghans. Gore wanted to get into CARBON TRADING. Neither of these people should have been anywhere near the white house. Bilby doesn't know these things obviously or he would not be blabbing the talking point that Nader gave us this crappy supreme court and the idiot Dubbiya. The DNC and the American people did that. They wanted him gone so his issues could not possibly surface. Think how much better things would be if Nader had been a speaker at that debate.

 

[bilby]

Again, he could, AND DID, give his opinions to the press, after watching the debate on TV.

His freedom of speech was in no way infringed; all that happened was that he was refused admission to an event that was organised by somebody else.

He has complete freedom of speech. That doesn't give him a right to a platform, nor a right to a place in the live audience. His exclusion from the audience didn't harm him one bit - unless he planned to be disruptive, which you say he did not. So what harm was done to him? What actual right was he denied?

Actually, his presence would have been disruptive

Indeed it would. Which is why they refused to allow it, as was their right. I am glad you agree with me.

in exactly the way you don't want to admit it would be - people would see him there and realize he was excluded from being on stage.

What have I said that makes you think for an instant that I don't want to 'admit' that? I am perfectly comfortable with that. No 'admission' required. His presence would have been disruptive. So it was prohibited by the people running the event - as was their right.

His presence would have been a reminder to everyone present that they aren't getting all sides. Plus occasionally the press would have panned over to him to see if he's making any sort of faces when questions relevant to his candidacy are asked. "They just asked about global warming, look, Nader is frowning."

Exactly. So untermensche is wrong when he says "It is an insane assumption that he would deliberately do something disruptive" - unless he is an idiot who couldn't see that his mere presence would be disruptive, as you have just explained. You and I can see it; Surely Nader is smart enough to see it too?

That is exactly the disruption the major parties feared, that is exactly the disruption you are referring to, and I've just stated it plainly.

Yes. Thank you for making my point so clearly.

I do wonder why you seem to think that you are contradicting me, but I guess that's just the Internet for you - even people who agree with you prefer to tell you that you are wrong while they do it

 

[bilby]

Utter nonsense pulled from thin air.

The man has no history of disruption.

He is one of the most articulate and knowledgeable people in the country.

It is an insane assumption that he would deliberately do something disruptive.

Totally insane!

The only thing Nader might possibly have done is give his opinions of the debate to the press so that many people might hear them.

Since that is all he could have done that is all that they could have feared.

Tyrants are always in fear their absolute power may be questioned.

Bilby does this all the time, creating straw men and straw threats.

Reality disagrees with you, as anyone here can observe for themselves.

The truth is that the election was LOST BY A LIFELESS LACK LUSTER AL GORE ALL ON HIS OWN. It was his inept campaigning and nothing else that cost him the election. What is more, we would not necessarily have had any better from Gore than Dubbiya.

Reality disagrees with you, as anyone here can observe for themselves.

Nader has not ever disrupted any public meeting I know of. He was that year, the only man running for president who had saved thousands of American lives through his efforts at consumer protection. The other boobs...well Bush for example....killed Americans and Iraqis and Afghans. Gore wanted to get into CARBON TRADING. Neither of these people should have been anywhere near the white house. Bilby doesn't know these things obviously

Not agreeing that something is bad is not the same thing as not knowing about it. You say "CARBON TRADING" as though it was self-evidently a bad idea; But that is just a symptom of your blind perfectionism - you seem to honestly think that compromise is worse than doing nothing. Which is truly nuts.

... or he would not be blabbing the talking point that Nader gave us this crappy supreme court and the idiot Dubbiya.

It's hardly just a 'talking point'; It is clearly true. The election was so close that Gore actually won, but not by enough to prevent Bush's family from stealing Florida, and thereby the whitehouse, from him. This is a simple and plain fact.

Absent Nader, the result would have been less close, both in Florida and elsewhere. The strong balance of probability is that Gore would have become president.

The DNC and the American people did that. They wanted him gone so his issues could not possibly surface. Think how much better things would be if Nader had been a speaker at that debate.

You think a clear victory for GW would have been better? Or are you genuinely delusional enough to think that Nader could have become POTUS on the back of that debate? You imagine that he could have gained more than 30 percentage points in the polls by his appearance?

You need to deal with the system you actually have; Not live in a fantasy world about the system you should have. You need 270 EVs to become POTUS. Nader could not have achieved that goal. And the system is such that getting 3 EVs or 269 EVs is EXACTLY as good as getting 0. It's a shit system - but pretending it doesn't exist won't help with that. Pretending that changing the debate attendees will change anything is delusional. The only way to get the reforms you need is by changing your constitution. And that's not likely to happen, regardless of how many people appear in TV debates.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

I do wonder why you seem to think that you are contradicting me, but I guess that's just the Internet for you - even people who agree with you prefer to tell you that you are wrong while they do it

Because I don't agree that all those "disruptions" I was describing are actual disruptions. I was elaborating the nature of the "disruptions" to show how silly it is to call them that.

 

[bilby]

I do wonder why you seem to think that you are contradicting me, but I guess that's just the Internet for you - even people who agree with you prefer to tell you that you are wrong while they do it

Because I don't agree that all those "disruptions" I was describing are actual disruptions. I was elaborating the nature of the "disruptions" to show how silly it is to call them that.

Than you failed miserably.

 

[untermensche]

Utter nonsense pulled from thin air.

The man has no history of disruption.

He is one of the most articulate and knowledgeable people in the country.

It is an insane assumption that he would deliberately do something disruptive.

Totally insane!

The only thing Nader might possibly have done is give his opinions of the debate to the press so that many people might hear them.

Since that is all he could have done that is all that they could have feared.

Tyrants are always in fear their absolute power may be questioned.

Again, he could, AND DID, give his opinions to the press, after watching the debate on TV.

Don't ask me to explain their insane fears.

They feared him in the venue. In another room.

They did not fear a disruption because there would have been no disruption.

They feared his mere presence. And illegally (as a court later determined) prevented him from watching. From another room!!

His freedom of speech was in no way infringed; all that happened was that he was refused admission to an event that was organised by somebody else.

A court determined his freedoms were infringed.

Your position is the position of the tyrant. Sickening.

He was a legitimate presidential candidate and his rights were violated by the dictates of the two parties. Two despicable parties.

Two despicable parties that despicable people support in this.

 

[untermensche]

Again, he could, AND DID, give his opinions to the press, after watching the debate on TV.

His freedom of speech was in no way infringed; all that happened was that he was refused admission to an event that was organised by somebody else.

He has complete freedom of speech. That doesn't give him a right to a platform, nor a right to a place in the live audience. His exclusion from the audience didn't harm him one bit - unless he planned to be disruptive, which you say he did not. So what harm was done to him? What actual right was he denied?

Actually, his presence would have been disruptive in exactly the way you don't want to admit it would be - people would see him there and realize he was excluded from being on stage. His presence would have been a reminder to everyone present that they aren't getting all sides. Plus occasionally the press would have panned over to him to see if he's making any sort of faces when questions relevant to his candidacy are asked. "They just asked about global warming, look, Nader is frowning."

That is exactly the disruption the major parties feared, that is exactly the disruption you are referring to, and I've just stated it plainly.

If the mere presence of a presidential candidate, sitting and watching in another room, at a presidential debate is now some "disruption" then we have entered the twilight zone.

 

[whichphilosophy]

Actually, his presence would have been disruptive in exactly the way you don't want to admit it would be - people would see him there and realize he was excluded from being on stage. His presence would have been a reminder to everyone present that they aren't getting all sides. Plus occasionally the press would have panned over to him to see if he's making any sort of faces when questions relevant to his candidacy are asked. "They just asked about global warming, look, Nader is frowning."

That is exactly the disruption the major parties feared, that is exactly the disruption you are referring to, and I've just stated it plainly.

If the mere presence of a presidential candidate, sitting and watching in another room, at a presidential debate is now some "disruption" then we have entered the twilight zone.

It's a paranoia at the thought of an outsider being allowed to exercise a right of free speech.

 

[bilby]

If the mere presence of a presidential candidate, sitting and watching in another room, at a presidential debate is now some "disruption" then we have entered the twilight zone.

It's a paranoia at the thought of an outsider being allowed to exercise a right of free speech.

Nobody infringed anybody's right to free speech.

Nader's freedom to speak doesn't entail freedom to use someone else's platform.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If the mere presence of a presidential candidate, sitting and watching in another room, at a presidential debate is now some "disruption" then we have entered the twilight zone.

It's a paranoia at the thought of an outsider being allowed to exercise a right of free speech.

Paranoia? Anyone else notice Donald Trump is in the General Election, thanks in large part to a massive candidate field?

Debates aren't to toss out ideas, it is about contrasting the positions of the candidates that have a chance to win the election. Because we don't have a parliament style government, this reduces the influence, if any of the minor candidates. And seeing as they have no representatives in Congress, why should they be added?

 

[Malintent]

One reason that the two party's policies are not so different (and actually, they are) is because in certain things, there's not much variation between what works and what the majority of people would accept. The two parties differences on banking is that one says that banks should have little if any regulation, and the other party says that banks should have considerable regulation. No one says 'there shouldn't be any banks,' or 'all banks should be government run,' because these ideas aren't acceptable to the vast majority of people. They are the opinions of fringe groups. Many issues have minimal differences and common ground that has, til recently, allowed the parties to work together and compromise and reach a consensus conclusion. It amazes me that even after one of the parties has been taken over by an extremist faction that has radicalized its positions, people are still saying there's no difference between the parties. To me, there seem to be many differences.

Aggressively maintaining racist status quo vs progress in civil rights.
Unilateral military action around the world vs collective security
Denial of Global Warming and virtually all environmental issues vs science based realism on these issues
Removal of all taxes and regulation for corporations vs taxing and regulating corporations fairly for their use of resources and with a goal of long term stability.
Imposition of a particular religion as a state religion vs maintaining constitutional separation between church and state.
and so on.

There is even more....

Overturning of Roe v. Wade (Trump) versus support of healthcare awareness and services (Clinton)
Unlimited 2nd amendment rights (Trump) versus limited 2nd amendment rights (Clinton)
Act brashly and figure it out later (Trump) versus formulation of a plan based on experience and knowledge (Clinton)

 

[ronburgundy]

Actually, his presence would have been disruptive in exactly the way you don't want to admit it would be - people would see him there and realize he was excluded from being on stage. His presence would have been a reminder to everyone present that they aren't getting all sides. Plus occasionally the press would have panned over to him to see if he's making any sort of faces when questions relevant to his candidacy are asked. "They just asked about global warming, look, Nader is frowning."

That is exactly the disruption the major parties feared, that is exactly the disruption you are referring to, and I've just stated it plainly.

If the mere presence of a presidential candidate, sitting and watching in another room, at a presidential debate is now some "disruption" then we have entered the twilight zone.

What purpose would be served to anyone, including Nader, by having him there in another room? It is just a completely idiotic idea in the first place, so they were right to reject it.

As to "fearing" Nader, of course they did, but the quality of his ideas has nothing to do with it. Nader was polling around 2% at that time, so his numbers had nowhere to go but up, no matter what he said in the debate. Simply due to statistical realities, there was no chance for either major party to gain many supporters from Nader because he had so few. Simply giving him exposure on a program they created and paid for would likely boost those low numbers no matter what Nader said. That is why it makes perfect rational sense for candidates to only agree to be in a debate against others who already have enough supporters that there is chance each candidate could take some of those supporters away. If Nader had 15% support at the time, they'd have let him in, because that would voters they Dem and Republican candidate could try to take from him. And Nader would not have wanted to debate another 3rd party candidate with 0% support for the same reason the Dems and Repubs did not want to debate him, which is that the only possible outcome is that you will lose support when you debate someone with so little a priori support that they have nothing to lose.

 

[Sarpedon]

Thanks Malintent, sometimes I grow weary of typing the problems of right wing politics.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Do you have an example of an issue raised by a third party that isn't addressed by at least one of the major parties?

Granted, Trump and the Republican party don't address a number of issues, for example, Global Warming, income inequality and the student loan problem, among others, not too surprising since they created a lot of the problems that need to be corrected. I suppose that their party default position of "no" is suppose to cover the issues that they don't address.

That answers your own question. Stein would be bringing up each of those issues if she was fully in a debate with these two, and she'd bring them up even if there was no question about them from the moderator.

How about allowing the minority parties into the debate but allocating questions/time to them based on their support? If you are polling very low you only get to show up for a few minutes, basically as a guest speaker in the debate for your primary issue, and then you're not there for the next segment?

A proposal that no one will agree to.

People can be convinced. It is a possible compromise. If you can't have full participation with minority parties, then this is a baby step.

You could keep the same corrupt failing system you have now, or you could make moves to change it, if not all at once, then a little at a time, through small steps like this.