Activist Delivers Comments to Presidential Debate Commission
By Taylor Tyler | 08/22/2012 | Activism, Elections 2012, Electoral Reform, President | 37 Comments
Photo: Gage Skidmore
The Commission on Presidential Debates, the private corporation established by Democrats and Republicans to organize and moderate the presidential debates, is currently being petitioned by concerned citizens to invite third party candidates to the 2012 presidential debates.
Because the CPD provides no method for citizens to voice their opinions regarding third party inclusion in the presidential debates, activist Rick Stewart has traveled all the way to Washington, DC to hand deliver messages to the CPD’s office.
Stewart set up his computer and printer in the Soho Tea & Coffee shop near the CPD’s headquarters and prints hard copies of e-mail messages and Facebook comments to the presidential debate commission. These are put in individual sealed envelopes, then delivered directly to the CPD every weekday afternoon.
To have comments and suggestions delivered to the CPD, Rick urges fellow activists to e-mail them to [email protected] or join the Facebook group named ‘Help The Commission on Presidential Debates do its job,’ and make a post there.
“The Executive Director of the CPD, Janet Brown, recently stated that ‘the debates belong to the people’ and I am just doing my job as a citizen to ensure that the Commission doesn’t stray from their mission to provide the best debate information possible to the people,” said Stewart.
After months of petitioning the CPD to invite third party candidates to the debates, including a letter sent from the Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, a 2400 signature petition on change.org, and hundreds of emails to the executive director and board of directors, the only response from the CPD regarding the invitation of third party candidates came from Janet Brown in July, stating that no decisions have been made and that those lobbying are “making assumptions about something that has not happened.”
In 1992, Ross Perot was the first, and as of yet, only third party candidate to receive an invitation since US presidential debates began in 1960.
Leave Your Comment →
37 Comments
Matt Metzner
08.22.2012
@mmetzner
Those petitioning the CPD are basing their assumption on facts it seems. Certainly hearing from more candidates is beneficial to the American people.
Charles Johnson
08.22.2012
If you’re in a state that is already a stronghold of one of the two parties, then voting a third party will not affect the outcome of that state. All it will do is insure better ballot access for future third party candidates.
Nick Tripoli
08.22.2012
Probably not, but it should. The current system is rigged. We do not enjoy real democracy here. Our elections are bought & paid for by the rich/Big Business and wholeheartedly controlled, on every level, by the two main parties.
Richard Oakley
08.22.2012
no they won’t change they (the 2 major parties) don’t want to hear frrom the rest of the world
William Allen
08.22.2012
** WAKE UP CALL!! ** A better question is, Why is a PRIVATE corporation in charge of Presidential debates?
Robert Schmid
08.22.2012
No.
Jim Honey Badger Plunkett
08.22.2012
William is 100% correct. Allowing any business to select who is allowed into a Presidential debate is like handing the wool over to the people trying to pull it over your eyes.
Eric Hutchins
08.22.2012
No. Having diverse views on the stage would be too much of a risk for the establishment — can’t promote independent thought so close to an election.
Mike Morrato
08.22.2012
Ugh, only 2400? Gary is pretty good at getting a crowd together but 2400 is a terribly low and unimpressive number. :(
Sadly it wouldn’t matter. The rules set up in the 80s clearly say 15% in 5 polls, Gallup gets to choose the 5 polls used and it was designed that way to negatively impact those not bankrolled by the two major parties.
He does meet the other 2 requirements though so that should stand for something. = Sadly it won’t and America will be left with two shades of the same coin come November.
Duane Dichiara
08.22.2012
Let’s reverse this out. There are a host of candidates for President. What do readers think SHOULD be the means of entry into the major public debates? Now of course you could let anyone in, and you’d then have a giant mess. My take? Poll better than say 10% or 15%, or have raised a certain amount. Even bringing up the idea of 2,400 signatures being a decent reason to let someone in is asinine. I could gather than many in a few days with a few volunteers. Or pay and get them in a day. If these independent candidates want to be taken seriously they really need to be able to demonstrate concrete political support.
Justin Renquist
08.22.2012
Nope. Won’t change a thing.
Nancy Peterson
08.22.2012
NO
Douglas Neslund
08.22.2012
No. It’s a fixed game …
Trevor Britton
08.22.2012
I wouldnt vote for the guy, but would love to see him and other non-major party candidates involved.
Lana Gail Osborne Dearing
08.22.2012
Those were gathered in just a couple days by a couple of people. If a. Candidate like Gary Johnson works to get on the ballot in all states and accomplishes that, then he should be included in the debates and all the polls. It is pretty difficult to poll 15% when the polling establishmentd won’t even include them. Gary Johnson deserves to be on the polls and to be heard in the debates. Then the people who watch it will truly have a choice by seeing all sides of the candidates not the status quo of democrats and republicans. This is an excellent idea
Scot Douglas
08.22.2012
No, and they shouldn’t.
La'Dene Bean
08.22.2012
No – Party Machines won’t allow that . An option other than either could upset both apple carts ~
Rodney Punt
08.22.2012
Allow them.
Scot Douglas
08.22.2012
I notice that this is another FB post in which IV tosses things out, but doesn’t both debating. Which means that those behind IV are contributing to the drought they mentioned in an earlier post
Jim Tomasik
08.22.2012
Duane Dichiara, There are very few candidates who are on enough state ballots to get the required 270 electoral votes. Far less than was the number allowed to be in the party’s primary debates over the past 5 years. If a candidate can’t get electoral votes that candidate should NOT be allowed to be in the debates because you cannot win under any circumstances. Johnson has more than enough state ballot access to achieve election. The polling at a certain point idea is proven to be EXTREMELY flawed in that the private polling companies are not required to actually poll all candidates who have enough state balloting to have electoral success. Instead they prefer to poll people who are not even running like Sarah Palin and Elvis Presley. The fact is that the flawed system is the REASON there are only 2400 signatures on the change petition because people are to accepting of the “fact” that only a Republican and a Democrat are allowed to participate in the discussion.
Doug Boone
08.22.2012
If you had 2,400,000 then the answer would probably be…….no. if you had 240 and a corporate sponsor…… no problem.
Adam Gibson
08.22.2012
@Mike – We have 2440, but I mainly have gotten them from word of mouth. Im not sure how to get the word out about the petition. If you have any ideas please share. http://www.change.org/petitions/american-voters-allow-gary-johnson-and-jill-stein-to-be-part-of-the-presidential-debates
Kevin Williams
08.22.2012
No, thankfully. Gary Johnson has no chance at winning the 270 electoral votes needed, and every moment he continues simply increases the risk that Obama will retain the Presidency.
To that, I say: NO WAY! This isn’t a game, or debate contest – this is HIGH STAKES real politics!
Craig D. Schlesinger
08.25.2012
@craigschlesinger
You’re operating under the (false) assumption that a Romney administration will be an improvement over Obama. When you strip away the rhetoric, both Obama and Romney are practically the same on issue after issue. Four years ago the electorate operated under the (false) assumption that Obama would be an improvement over Bush. How much longer do you play this game before realizing that both parties represent two equally bad outcomes?
It’s simple game theory: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GameTheory.html
Mike Morrato
08.22.2012
@Adam – I’m volunteering for Governor Johnson here in CO but this poll was never brought up. The simple answer is that Gary does (or his social media handlers more appropriately) what he has done on other polls and crowd-related activities: make a post about it.
When CNN didn’t include him in the GOP debates or polls, he asked for support from the public on here. When Gallup, Rasmussen, RCP, Pew, etc didn’t have him on the Presidential polls, his social media outlets listed their names, numbers and what people could do.
I’m not sure why this petition, as sadly pointless as it will ultimately be (as has been pointed out, internet based petitions rarely have much efffect), hasn’t been promoted on the “official” state and national outlets here on FB, G+ or even his website.
Peter Swayze
08.22.2012
Kevin Williams: which two parties have spent the country into penury? Why on earth should you believe “it will be different this time?”.
Kevin Driscoll
08.22.2012
Kevin Williams, such a typical sheeple. . . . .
Mark Schug
08.22.2012
Screw that…too much is at stake in this election….Gary Johnson would assure an Obama reelection….please just go away!!!
Charles Johnson
08.22.2012
Gov. Johnson will not ensure that Obama is re-elected. His supporters will. Also, if the GOP would have nominated a better candidate that isn’t funded by the same crooked banks that were a part of the housing bubble, maybe just maybe Libertarians would have moved behind the GOP candidate. Almost all of the same banks that are supporting Gov. Romney this go around supported Obama in ’08. So again, tell me what’s different other than the banks that supported Obama in ’08 are now supporting Gov. Romney in 2012. If anything, the alienation of the independent voters and a good portion of the Republican base will cause Gov. Romney to loose this election.
mareline merlan
08.22.2012
and what difference exactly do you see between romney and obama assuming that your voting for romney.
end the Commission on Presidential Debates
Scott W. Trent Jr.
08.22.2012
OR all those votes for HIM COULD put R & R into w. h.
Charles Johnson
08.22.2012
Or people could stand on their principles and elect someone who will actually do something instead of following the status quo of liberty squashing politics. Gov. Romney supporters assume that Gov. Johnson supporters had any intention of voting for Gov. Romney in the first place. Gov. Johnson supporters are choosing him because we feel his is better than the two major party liberty squashing candidates. How do I know they’re liberty squashing? Easy, they both support the poorly named “Patriot Act” (Paul Ryan wants to implement the “Patriot Act” indefinitely, they both support the poorly drafted 2012 “NDAA”, they both support the TARP bailouts for companies that are supposedly to big to fail, and they both have supported their own version of a piss poor healthcare plan. To me, those four forms of legislation are liberty squashing policies and I will not be a part of voting for them.
Bryce Oliver
08.22.2012
LOL. Of course not!
mareline merlan
08.22.2012
I think you guys are confused the petition that is on change.org and the activist who is printing out letters and comments by whoever wants to be heard and hand delivering them to the commission are two different things. Regardless of who wins this election something needs to be done about the way that these debates are controlled by these 2 parties. It’s a sham and for the sophisticated country that we are supposed to be this is really a letdown and as American citizens we should be trying to do whatever it is we can to change things for the greater good not for the lesser of two evils.
Frank Visage
08.22.2012
2400 signatures won’t make a difference. 2400 torches and pitchforks might. 24,000 would be even better.
ryan
09.20.2012
We want to here all viable candidates in the debate!!!
Debatepopular
05.10.2013
@debatepopular
The truth that is rare to see always have national and global attention in view of two candidates only.