Jill Stein arrested for wanting to debate

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Norris

Norris

Wait, so she tried to crash a high security event that she wasn't invited to and got arrested for it and you feel this makes some grand point about American politics?
 
Krisken

Krisken

Norris said:
Wait, so she tried to crash a high security event that she wasn't invited to and got arrested for it and you feel this makes some grand point about American politics?
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I don't see why not. She's on 85% of the state ballots. I think Gary Johnson should be allowed at the debates as well.
 
Tress

Tress

Krisken said:
I don't see why not. She's on 85% of the state ballots. I think Gary Johnson should be allowed at the debates as well.
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Right, but the thread title makes it sound as though she was arrested for wanting to join the debate. She was actually arrested for trying to force he way into an event attended by the President, and the Secret Service is never in the mood to play. Should she have been included? Maybe. Should she have tried to come in without permission? No.
 
Krisken

Krisken

Tress said:
Right, but the thread title makes it sound as though she was arrested for wanting to join the debate. She was actually arrested for trying to force he way into an event attended by the President, and the Secret Service is never in the mood to play. Should she have been included? Maybe. Should she have tried to come in without permission? No.
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I guess that's what makes it a protest. She certainly did want to be part of the debate. Saying she was wrong because she wasn't invited is exactly what she is trying to bring focus to.
 
Norris

Norris

Krisken said:
I don't see why not. She's on 85% of the state ballots. I think Gary Johnson should be allowed at the debates as well.
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Oh, I definitely agree sine the presence of the Libertarians and The Greens might make them more than catchphrase contests. However, the debates are run by a "non-partisan" organization controlled by the Republicans and Democrats. That means two things:
1) The debates are not publicly run events and therefore (I think) they have complete control of the guest list.
2) Neither side is going to do anything that could make them look bad.
Krisken said:
I guess that's what makes it a protest. She certainly did want to be part of the debate. Saying she was wrong because she wasn't invited is exactly what she is trying to bring focus to.
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It's a protest, but I personally find it a highly ineffective one because the end result would have been the same no matter who she was. She was, so far as I can tell, basically intending to force her way on stage. When the president's on that stage, that's never going to happen.
 
strawman

strawman

The debate organization is not and has never been "non-partisan". They are bipartisan, jointly run by the democrats and republicans.

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

You can view the history of debates prior to the CoPD here:

http://people.howstuffworks.com/debate1.htm

Previously they were run by the league of women voters, who chose the audience and panelists, but over time the two parties got control, and eventually entered a secret agreement with each other to hold their own debates where they could jointly control who participates. As the leading parties, they are the ones that get the TV time, so why should they bother following anyone else's rules?

A shorter and perhaps more interesting essay on the topic can be found here:

http://www.annenberg.northwestern.edu/pubs/debate/debate03.htm
 
strawman

strawman

GasBandit said:
There comes a time when being polite and easy to ignore doesn't work any more.
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ftfy

But even with that, the third party candidates MUST get significant popular support.

If they can't even do the minimum of getting their candidate on every ballot, then their support base is insignificant.

Perot got as much support as he did because he had the money to make average americans aware of his policies, and convince them that he was worth a vote.

If you can't spend $50-$100 million during the preseason (prior to the major party primaries) and that much per month leading up to the election after the primaries, you simply aren't going to reach enough americans no matter how popular your message would be if they heard it.

And unfortunately for the third parties it's cyclical. If you aren't popular, you aren't going to get the funds. If you don't have the funds you aren't going to become popular. The bipartisan monopoly works because the bar is too high, and they keep it there.

Perot only got as far as he did because he spent his own money for the "down payment" so to speak on his campaign, which made him popular enough to become a viable candidate, and then others started supporting him financially and in other ways.

I think the only way a third party is going to win the white house is if they first get a significant base installed in congress.

You can't start reform from the top.

And while many claim a simple change to runoff voting would be better, I suspect that it would only be a matter of time before two parties figured out how to play that game too and continue the lockout. Voting reform alone is simply not sufficient to move the population.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
Instant runoff voting may not be enough by itself, but it would be an important, if not requisite, first step. Until the spectre of "throwing your vote away" on a 3rd party candidate is done away with, only those of us who stubbornly refuse to compromise on principles to the point of arguable absurdity will vote for 3rd party candidates.
 
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