We haven't had real debates in this country since the two corporate parties seized control of them during the 1988 election, and they have been steadily tightening control ever since.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Presidential_Debates

In 1988, the League of Women Voters withdrew its sponsorship of the presidential debates after the George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis campaigns secretly agreed to a "memorandum of understanding" that would decide which candidates could participate in the debates, which individuals would be panelists (and therefore able to ask questions), and the height of the podiums. The League rejected the demands and released a statement saying that they were withdrawing support for the debates because "the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter."[4]

(more at link)

... because if they aren't popular enough BEFORE the debates then they shouldn't use the debates as a way to get their names out to the public.

Seems as if any candidate that had enough of the public's support/donations would be able to get at least a 15% showing in the polls before the debates.

If there was no polling percentage qualification then we could end up with MANY folks at the presidential debates and the two top candidates' time to answer questions would be diminished - which is not a good thing because they'd be able to dodge the questions even more than they do now.

That 15 percent stipulation was not put into place until the year 2000 (because the two corporate parties felt threatened by Ralph Nader), and we never had the problem you describe.

The problem we DO have is the stranglehold that corporations have on our two major parties, and the fact that they have retooled the election process to prevent other ideas even from being heard. Preventing other voices from challenging them and forcing the two major parties to try harder to appeal to voters rather to than corporate interests to get re-elected is exactly why the debates have become the vapid beauty contests we have now.

You claimed that the 15 percent rule is saving us from all these terrible consequences. I pointed out that the rule wasn't in place prior to 2000 and we never had those problems.

You choose to ignore that refutation of your claims, and my subsequent comments.

The two party system ensures continued corporate control of government.

When the polls call do they even offer more than the two choices?

(and probably Republicans, too...)

is that the absence of other challengers doesn't just hurt the potential challengers; it keeps our OWN party from being responsive to us.

When the only other guy running is corporate, too, there is no pressure to appeal or respond to voters beyond the corporate agenda, because there is nowhere else those voters can possibly go.

Most would do it for the publicity and most would remove votes from Democratic candidates. In 2004 most "alternative" candidates were left wing; Nader, Walt Brown, Roger Calero. In contrast only the Libertarians on the RW threatened to take votes from Republicans.

Yes, it would be good to have a far wider set of political philosophies represented but until the entire political system is reformed then you are stuck with working within the current party structures.

But as long as we are stuck working with what we have now, then the system will never be reformed. So it is a bit of a catch 22.

To make it simple I'll spell it out directly. We need a system that allows us to vote Green without spoiling the election for Dems, and throwing it to the gop.

Like instant runoff or ranked choice, or something like that.

After what happened with Nader I had hoped the Democrats would take the lead on getting those reforms. But nope.