Deson

While partially self reinforcing, why should air time be given to people with little notoriety and without a strong or at least proven political mechanism/profile?

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icKx

Partly self reinforcing? I'd say almost completely self reinforcing.

And what is the criteria for having notoriety or a proven political profile?

Time Magazine (very mainstream!) only two years ago named Ralph Nader as one of the "100 most influential Americans" in history.
Seems to me that qualifies as having gained some notoriety over the years... yet he was never allowed into a presidential debate.

Ross Perot was polling at roughly 18-19% of the popular vote in '92 before the debates and still had to fight to participate.
You'd think almost 1 in 5 voting Americans wanting you for president would be an adequate qualification - but not according to the two major parties.

I just don't see any problem with a presidential debate between 15 candidates.
Why? Because the two major parties already do just that with their primary debates - despite the fact that only maybe 2 or 3 of their candidates have any real chance of actually landing the nomination.
And to some extent it works: candidates who gain no traction from the debates drop out and walk away, but they still were able to express their ideas and political platform.

Illuminator

What were the policy complaints against Perot? Were his charts false? Did he lie?

As far as I could tell, the only thing that killed his critical momentum was when he dropped out.

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Bow down before the one you serve. You're going to get what you deserve.

icKx

Tbh I don't know exactly. I was very young in 92'.

But I do remember my Dad watching Perot on TV and no joke the image that sticks out in my mind is him pointing to bar graphs and charts...

Deson

Only thing that killed Perot was dropping out. And those charts were effective, I still remember him on NAFTA almost word for word because of it.Of course, he failed my batshit crazy test from his overall mannerism and indecisiveness on his run.

There is plenty wrong with the 15 on-stage crap and no year has better demonstrated that than this one. On the Democratic side, everyone attacked Hillary relentlessly until they finally drew blood in October. Of course, the only candidates it ever benefited were Obama and to a lesser extent Edwards. All the no shot in hell candidates( however qualified by their ideas) gained zero traction and ultimately just paved the way for Obama since the format didn't really highlight how shit he was during those early debates. Sure he made a misstep or two but the news wasn't really touched on (besides bombing Pakistan) because there were so many players. Even after everyone else dropped out, The Edwards- Obama tag team in January vs. Hillary was damn effective in allowing Obama to play the nice guy and new politics man instead of showing the colors he would show after Edwards left.

On the Repub side, you had a mix of everyone trying to out Tancredo the man himself, peer pressure to skip venues that candidates were otherwise likely to attend and everyone trying to be the reincarnation of Reagan without actually talking serious policy. Of course, John McCain proved 2 things this season( and to an extent is proving them now) 1. Money/support means shit if you don't know how to use it and 2. just because people call you dead doesn't mean you're buried. He blew his money, blew his "lead" and blew his name because the format he was running just wasn't him. After that he stripped down and went straight for the voters and actually engaged them to ultimately come back and become the nominee.

Still on the Republicans, the only people who came out well were people that were going to anyway-- Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain and Romney. Fred Thompson came across well later on but he was mostly hype based on seeing so many shit candidates at once. Everyone else just formed effective snipers and soundbiters who managed to merely prolong what was essentially a forgone conclusion long before the first ballots were cast.

If you want to run for president you need to build the apparatus. Even if you start in just one state, you can force people to pay attention to you if you are effective. You can't just stand up and say I want to be president without proving you have at least some of the chops/ support needed to effectively govern. As Carter showed in the 70's, even having a party means shit if you can't play the politics with them.

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icKx

A lot of the problems you just mentioned though are unique to primary debates. Edit: The primary candidates are virtually identical on every important issue so personal attacks are sometimes all they can argue about.
I really don't foresee, say, Ralph Nader, Bob Barr and Ron Paul ganging up on John McCain in a presidential debate. They all have too much integrity for that and would not squander an opportunity to communicate their ideas to a huge audience in an official format.
Additionally, their platforms and positions on the issues are different enough that simply sniping at the front runner doesn't really help them.

For me the bottom line is that the media needs to end it's practice of censorship and exclusion, stop bowing down to the two-party racket and give others air time.

Look how well it worked for Ron Paul. Nobody heard of him before the Republican debates.
And I'm not even a Ron Paul supporter, but many witnessed him on stage next to that pack of pandering dittoheads and liked what they saw.

Deson

Ron Paul ran in 1988 as a libertarian and looked nuts then too.

The problem is with the way debates are done. They are not there to give substance, they are there as a point scoring exercise. Integrity means little when the machine all but forces you to take an action; the only action of integrity in such a case is to not show up. If those guys want to prove themselves relevant and compete, they are going to have to set up alternate venues and a virtually parallel system.The media is neither censoring nor excluding, they are ignoring what they find of little relevance(it is business after all). Nader had press in 2000, Perot in 1992, Ron Paul in 1988 and their actions all essentially confirmed that while these guys had good ideas, they were not presidential material.

It wouldn't really matter if they won anyway since without congressional support there is little a president can accomplish. You'd have 4 years of watching a guy rant and rave about his platform and watch it get swallowed up in politics as usual (Carter).If the system is to be changed, the very roots must be attacked. Starting up or taking over a party is just about the only way to get the traction and exposure needed to be effective. Because politics in the U.S. is far more individual than party, such an insurgency is very feasible-- look at how "conservatives" came to dominate the Republican party.

If Bob Barr, or for that matter any other outsider, wants to compete, he's going to to have to play a better game than the one currently being done. Screw the networks, hit the people. Politics starts local. If he can get serious traction around him, he can compete and make himself relevant.

Btw, it is precisely that fierce integrity and commitment to cause that makes all those guys look fucking crazy. While admirable traits in activists, it does not translate well to a person who is effectively the symbol of the nation.

Edit: Saw the edit. Nearly identical but not totally, but again it comes back to the format. The American debate system is not a system for rational discourse but more for "gotcha". That's why McCain's proposal to have town halls was at the very least worth investigating. Unmoderated discourse is just about the only way you're really going to get a good answer to the questions that concern you.

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Otis

With the way his campaign is going, I've got ten bucks that says McCain is going to snap and call Obama a ****** within earshot of an open mic sometime between the convention and election day

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John McMaverick

Deson

That would have been Romney and he would have done it for the "Bubba" vote.

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drychnath

White folk don't use the N word these days.

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EQ2: Avenger Drychnath Malcherion -AB

Everything is on a great scale upon this continent, the rivers are immense, the climate violent in heat and cold, the prospects magnificent, the thunder and lightning tremendous, the disorders incident to the country make every constitution tremble. Our own blunders here, our misconduct, our losses, our disgraces, our ruin Are On a Great Scale.
-Lord Carlisle