but my opinion is that it's downright shady of them to exclude the other candidates just because they don't have enough support in the polls. Many of the 3rd parties do have some interesting ideas that the 2 major parties seldom discuss, so I think by them being left out, the organizers of the debate are doing the country a disservice.

but I said that the reason why I think they should've been included is because some of the 3rd parties do have a few decent ideas that don't otherwise get discussed often in mainstream politics. The point I'm making is that I don't think it hurts to have more voices in the debate. That's just my $0.02.

Time to go underground right!

But how dare you call this a "farce". It's not like even the audience went through a rehearsal.

Oh, wait...

But we should have a public debate between them, anyone that is running and has the fare to get to 1 public debate.

We are letting others make our decisions for us, and that's servitude.

But I would like to see you provide a rundown of the issues they agree on if you think that's the case.

Check for an article on Black Agenda Report. dated Wed, 08/29/2012 - 13:37 — by Bruce A. Dixon

Sorry it sounded a little rude the way I said it the first time.

Big Points that remain the same under either President:

Fifty seven cents out of every dollar of Federal Spending goes to the military. Back in 1979, this figure was under eight percent!

Forty nine cents out of every dollar of profit earned in the USA will continue to go to the top Financial Firms. Back in the eighties, this figure was under nine percent.

The Drug Wars continue, with monies for the SWAT teams to endlessly enter properties, and shoot up people, often people they are killing are people living at an address different from the one the SWAT team intended to go to!

The nuclear power industry is touted as a "clean energy" which I guess it is, as no one in the Corporate-Owned halls of science is willing to say that radiation is dangerous any more. New Corporate Science meme- we simply "don't know" the results of nuclear radiation on a population. Obama pledges some 58 billions of dollars in loans to the nuke industry. Rmoney probably pledges more.

The monopolization of America's farm lands to Monsanto and other Ag Giant's new Gm seed and crops will continue. Obama has done nothing but appoint Gm people to the FDA and the Department of Agriculture. And of course, Rmoney will continue that as well.

The inadequacies of our nation's health insurance policies will continue to hit the low end of the middle class, and also those at higher ends who are trying to cover older people or seriously ill people on their health insurance plans. The nation's citizens continue to pay twice what health care costs in other countries, have little in the way of government support, and also receive few tax benefits for the fact that their disposable incomes are eaten up by health care and health care insurance costs.

Most likely, under either a "D" or an "R" President, austerity programs will be initiated so that the swindling of the wealth of America's middle class continues to be looted. So long, Social Security. So long MediCare.

Remember how in the first debate, Obama stated that he agreed with Rmoney on Simpson Bowles?

A difference between the two: Obama has come out swinging for the rights of Americans women to have decent health care regarding reproductive issues, and birth control and abortion. Rmoney can't make the same claim.

Should we let Mickey up there, too?

DO THE HARD WORK FIRST.

That's how we measure credible candidates for ballot access. People collect petitions and stuff like that. The two parties have formed a monopoly corporation, the Commission on Prez. Debates, to make sure no other viewpoints are allowed the big microphone of the debates..

My political views are being excluded from the mainstream political debate.

I've been on this issue. We are an alleged democracy, are we not? What is the harm, no matter the third party content as long as they observe debate rules. This small d corporate scam has to change. We need to turn ourselves into THE people first large d.

debate. n/t

My guess is probably as useful as the Republican Primary debates.

Last edited Wed Oct 17, 2012, 05:38 PM - Edit history (1)

He's on the ballot in 15 states. He's not showing up in any polls because the polls don't ask about him. If you're going to have a poll-based system, the pollsters are going to have to ask about everyone. And if they ask about everyone, Santa Clause is going to make it into the debate ahead of the Green Candidate, guaranteed.

As it stands, by the way, there is a poll-based criteria for getting into the debate under the current format: 15 percent average based on 5 national polls. Also need to be on the ballot in enough states to make getting 270 electoral votes mathematically possible. Stein met that criteria, but not the poll-based criteria. Would Stein have met the poll based criteria had the pollsters asked about the Green candidate? Unlikely. And would Stein have met the poll based criteria if the pollsters asked about every other candidate? Even less likely.

My view is that these should have been included.

Santa Claus is on the ballot in 15. Now, the 15 he is on don't make it to 270, but based on the one's he's on, he could hit that mark if he got on five more ballots.

Would you support allowing anyone who can get on as few as 11 ballots to participate? What do you think about states that make it harder than others to get on the ballot. What criteria then? Should there be a uniform standard for getting on a state's ballot? What should it be?

To raise this issue: veto cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. No chained CPI, or other such tweaks. Raise the issue of the TPP trade deal that will ship jobs overseas. Stop investing in fossil fuel infrastructure and turn that money towards renewable energy and green jobs.

Would you support a system where the two major parties sign a secret contract in advance to exclude these issues from the official debates? Cause that's what we have now.

I want the Democratic party to start including my point of view in it's calculations and stop locking these issues out. My view is that the debates should include a candidate who represents NO CUTS to Social Security, and the other stuff I just said. If the Democratic Party included my views in it's candidates then I would probably not be complaining.

Until then I think the rules should be loosened to allow the Greens in.

I vote for Obama to keep Romney out, but I feel public policy would benefit if somebody raised these issues in the main public forum of the Presidential election, the Presidential debates. For me it's about allowing these issues into the mainstream public debate.

And please don't try to tell me that the American people do not care about these issues. I think if they are on enough ballots to win they should be allowed in.

Of course there are many points of view out there. So I ask again, how do decide which points of view get exposure in a debate and which don't, other than your apparent standard of "my views should get exposure." Who decides which views and which candidates espousing those views, get to share the debate stage.

Why couldn't anybody ask the question "Will you veto Social Security cuts"?

It's the most obvious in the world.

Get these issues into the debate, any way you want, I don't care how you do it. Right now the issues mentioned are deliberately excluded and the American people are being led to believe that cuts, or shared sacrifice, are necessary and inevitable.

And the televised Presidential Debates are helping to shape that confusion and misunderstanding.

The truth is the cuts are wholly unnecessary and should be vetoed, as President Clinton did in 1995 when Gingrich and co. sent him a budget with Medicare cuts and other garbage.

Jill Stein should be allowed on the stage to say this, because nobody else on the stage is saying it.

Unless you're going to insist on "everyone", all you're doing is tweaking the margins.

Right now we have 2 major parties that are vying for the presidency and we need a chance to hear them out in a forum that gives us all the info we can get on these guys. If we have a 3rd or 4th candidate, the debate would be 3 hours long and that's not productive.

Why not have a separate debate for "other" party candidates to be heard. If there is enough momentum coming out of those debates and they have the support of a reasonably large percentage of the voting public.. like 20% or more, then maybe they should get into the main debates. But just muddying the debate puts all of the public at risk of loosing out on needed information plus the possibility of one of the parties using the platform to break down their opponents support and thus controlling the election through yet another underhanded tactic.

but if they are serious, why don't they start small and build locally by running for congressional seats in favorable districts fighting on issues that they support and are also important to people in local districts.

I think progressive liberals will find it easier to vote for progressive party candidates who are running for congress or senate. Because there is more of chance that a 3rs party candidate may win a local election. Whereas ever since the Gore defeat due to Ralph Nader, people realize that voting for 3rd party for the main office is helping one of the two parties and usually the wrong party.

to run a national campaign, IE a Presidential candidate, in order to maintain a ballot line in that state. No Presidential candidate...no downticket candidates. It is a catch 22 set up by the Dems and Repubs.

The GOP and its supporters hate their platform obviously.

And the Democrats fear them, and rightly so, because it could be 2000 all over again.

So we never get to hear their platform or ideas. I understand the frustration with Democratic voters in 2000 when so many votes were steered to the Green Party, whether that had any real impact or not is still up to debate. But I never understood the personal hatred for Ralph Nader. Here's a guy that has fought for consumers and citizens over corporations for all his adult life. He, rightly or wrongly, saw that even the Democrats were far too ensconced with corporate lobbyists to ever join them, so he ran on his own. I can't begrudge him that.

But with that said, we are living in a time where it would be devastating if the GOP came back into power. So unfortunately there is no room for any other ideas other than that the center/right DLC run Democrats.

What would be ideal is a Proportional Representation system like they have in many countries. Then we wouldn't have this antagonism with other parties that have a lot in common with us. In fact it would be a welcome addition to have a couple of Greens in the House just to hear voices not neutered by big party politics.

...like focusing on local and State legislative races to start, and running serious candidates, rather than celebrity candidates like "Grandpa" Al Lewis.

There's got to be something more than the left and right wings of the Unified Capitalist War Party.

Stein has the right to hold press conferences just like anyone else in this country. She has the right to debate with anyone else who voluntarily shows up. And if any of this were remotely interesting to any numerically significant minority of the U.S. public, it would be covered by the media.

But it isn't. So instead, she is trying to make other people listen to her as a condition to listening to Romney and Obama.

Sorry. Won't fly. This is a Democracy. Freedom of association also means freedom of disassociation.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

The media serve their own interest, thereby shaping public perception rather than reflecting it.

Remember, it was George Bush's cousin John Ellis, an employee of Fox News, who first called the 2000 election for Bush. Earlier, some of the other networks had called the election for Gore, but flipped when Fox made its announcement. In other words, the media were largely responsible for the notion that George Bush won the election.

(And actually, a large faction of the Green Party doesn't either, as I understand it).

But it's heavy-handed to arrest their candidates simply for protesting their exclusion from the debate. That protest didn't harm anyone.

And really, what harm would it do to include other parties in these debates? Presidential campaigns should not be about setting limits on the range of political discussion.

Obama would have done just fine in a debate involving Jill Stein(and he could probably even hold his own with Roseanne in a joke-off), so really, why the uptightness? If anything, it's Mitt that would freak out...just from having to be in the same room with couple of tough Jewish woman who didn't know their place.

Oh, wait... that's a bad thing..