My position: Yes.
(By the way, if you’d like to sign the petition:
http://www.votenader.com/debates/index.html )
I say yes too, btw have you seen his master Card commercial spoof, it’s running here in the SF Bay Area it’s great: Here’s the text if you haven’t seen it
Script for “Priceless Truth”:
Grilled tenderloin for fundraiser: $1,000 a plate.
Campaign ads filled with half truths: $10 million.
Promises to special interest groups: Over $10 billion.
Finding out the truth: Priceless.
There are some things money can’t buy.
Without Ralph Nader in the presidential debates, the truth will come in last. Find out how you can help. Go to votenader.com. Vote Ralph Nader for president.
Note to mods, if this is a violation of board rules, I wholly apologize
You can see it with Windows Media Player, for now, here:
http://slate.msn.com/spot/00-08-10/spot.asp
I wrote a letter to the local paper about this. He definitely should, if we call ourselves a democracy. The CPD just proves they’re cowards if they’re not letting him in. The arguments on Nader’s website and debatethis.org go farther into detail.
What I’m interested in knowing is if anyone doesn’t want Nader in the debates…and what their reasoning is.
They’re all idiots, but he’s an unelectable idiot. I only want to see electable idiots debate.
Plus, I drive a Corvair. I have a special dis-fondness for that guy.
Self-fulfilling prophecy, Bill. He’s unelectable in part because he’s not being allowed to the debate. Compare Jesse Ventura’s numbers before and after the Minnesota governor’s debate–if Minnesota had employed the standards just instituted by the CPD, Ventura wouldn’t have been allowed to debate either.
A valuation is made early on, by the pundits and the media, as to who’s a “serious” candidate and who isn’t. That label remains for the rest of the campaign–Ross Perot’s one of the few people to change the public perception of his candidacy, and that’s mostly 'cause he had money.
Nader’s been deemed unelectable since the beginning, and so he’s not given any play. Thus, no chance to increase public awareness of his candidacy. Thus, no chance of getting elected.
Gadarene, if you’re confident, I’m sure you can find a good wager in Vegas. A months salary ought to win you enough to retire.
I on the other hand am less confident. Less confident to the degree that I stand by my “unelectable idiot” label.
Certainly, you’ll agree that a truly unelectable person shouldn’t be in the debate? For example, should I be allowed in the debate? I suspect not. If we agree that unelectables shouldn’t be in national debates, then where do you draw the line at the definition of unelectable?
Bill H. said:
Why not? Are useful ideas entirely the province of “electable” candidates? Nader’s been a very public advocate in Washington for over thirty years; ya think he might have some intelligent things to say in the debate? His points and counterpoints might just shed some extra light on how the “electable” candidates justify their positions. Not a bad thing, huh?
I don’t really think he should be allowed in the debates. His opinion is not really what I would call popular in today’s stock-market obsessed, capitalism-based economy. Besides, he isn’t really convincing–or, what I’m trying to say is, he doesn’t seem to do a good job of convincing people that his opinion is the way to go.
Besides, I kinda like Corvairs. My dad has one, and it’s a great ride. 
Confident about what, Bill? I never said that Nader was going to get elected–in fact, I said “he’s unelectable in part because he’s not being allowed to the debate.” All other things being equal–if Gore, Bush, Nader, and Buchanan (to name to four candidates currently receiving at least 1 percent support in polls) were all given equal attention by the press, all had equal warchests, and all participated in the debates–then yeah, I think Nader would stand a damn good chance of being elected. Even now, were he to be invited to debate, I’d wager his support would go up at least 10 points afterward. Look at Ventura.
I agree with you that Nader won’t be elected this year; that he’ll finish a very distant third. That doesn’t mean he’s “unelectable.” Historically, the two major parties have created circumstances–even more so since the threat of Perot–in which it’s prohibitively difficult for a third-party candidate to be given the publicity to prove his or her mettle. It should therefore come as no surprise, Bill, when these candidates don’t draw the support necessary to meet the debate threshold set by, shockingly, the Democratic and Republican party leadership.
Like I said, “unelectable” is largely a self-fulfilling prophecy. It has little bearing on how a candidate would do at the polls were the campaign playing field more level.
On drawing the line, Nader’s position is that a candidate with 5% or more in a series of five polls gets in. Right now the qualifications to receive federal matching funds for the next election are 5% of the popular vote. So that’s pretty fair. Right now it is set by the CPD that 15% in five polls marks who can participate.
In 1998, Jesse Ventura was at below 10% in the polls and was considered unelectable. After being in the debates, he went on to win the election.
Ross Perot was at 6-7% in some polls before he was in the debates in 1992, and he went on to get 19% of the votes cast in the nation for President.
If we just decided that anyone other than the Democrats and the Republicans were unelectable, how would we ever get real opposition? Both the Democrats and the Republicans differ on only a few issues. There needs to be another party or several other parties to address the issues that the parties in power have ignored or passed on without debate.
To be fair, Jello, Perot was leading some polls with around 38 percent before he dropped out of the race in July (August?) of '92, having accomplished his goal of crippling Bush. So when he re-entered that fall, he was just making up ground that he’d lost in the interim.
Good points otherwise, though. Can anyone offer a reason why the debate threshold should be higher than the threshold for federal matching funds?
xenophon41 and Gadarene, I think you missed my point. (Or I didn’t express it well). Never mind Nader. Certainly, you can’t open a nationally televised presidential debate to anyone one who offers to show up. You have to draw the line, and that line is a degree of electability. I personally could never be elected in the upcoming election. And therefore, I should not be allowed in the debate. Nader is clearly closer to electability than me. But how close? My assessment is that he is completely unelectable. Call it unfair or whatever, it’s the truth.
The value of a debate isn’t to bring up new ideas. The value of a debate is to be a competition where candidates can make their positions clear so that we, the voters, can make a choice. It’s all about their demonstrating their electability. And you have to exceed a threshold of electability to even make it on the stage. Having new ideas isn’t enough.
I propose that Nader doesn’t meet that threshold. I propose that he’s not even close.
Oh, and did I mention that Corvair thing? I love my Corvair. Especially in these summer months when I can take the top down. But I digress.
The trouble is that people are assuming that the presidential debates are a function of the government. But they are really a function of the **parties[/]. The only reason the Dems and Reps debate each other is because they’d look worse if they refused to debate. Bush can’t refuse to debate Gore, he’d look like a jerk. But he can refuse to debate Nader or Buchanan or Browne and he doesn’t look like a jerk.
The debates are pure show-biz. What do the candidates of the major parties gain by debating the minor candidates? It’s not a debate then, it’s a group Q&A. There is an advantage to having only two candidates present. If you like, we could change the constitution…mandate a “run-off” if no candidate got 51% of the vote. Only the top two vote getters would be eligible for the debate.
But one “debate” I’d love to see is that fascist Buchanan going after Al Gore like he would have back on Crossfire. No, he wouldn’t have made any logical arguments, but he’d leave Al in tears by the end of the night…
Fair enough, Bill, but you’ve missed my point. Or I didn’t express it well. The line that delineates “degree of electability” was drawn before the campaign started, to ensure that only Democratic and Republican candidates would be debating. You’re talking as if Nader is “unelectable” through some failings of his own or some deficiency in his positions. I’m pointing out that the deck was stacked before the race began (pardon the atrocious mixed metaphor). It’s almost tautological to argue that Nader shouldn’t be in the debate because he’s unelectable.
Even with a virtual press blackout, he’s running at about five percent in most national polls, ahead of Buchanan and good enough to qualify his party for federal matching funds next election. Why is it productive to make the threshold for the debate so much higher than the threshold for matching funds? They’re equally arbitrary.
Heck I’d rather see Nader and Buchanan debate every day. Both of them have proven to be great debaters, and they would be entertaining as well as informative, while the other two candidates, what’s-their-names, are known for raising money and making slogans.
The media don’t really care for this kind of politicking (I think that it is partly their fault too for setting prices for spots so high). They are not booking Jesse Ventura for interviews as a lark. He was one of few people in the modern history of politicking that won his major election by neither out-raising nor out-spending his opponents, but by flat out-debating them. That is a genuine rarity today.
Gadarene wrote
Very true. It’s the “how can I get some experience if you won’t give me a job?” thing. Well, there is value in the machinery that’s currently in place, and value in candidates competing as they slog through that machinery. Bush and Gore had to go through a big fight to make it to where they’re at right now. Nader didn’t have nearly the struggle, in terms of money, time or politics. Your point about Nader having the deck stacked against him is true, but Bush and Gore also had the deck stacked against them, and managed to fight their way past that. I think there’s value in a candidate who passes that sort of hurdle.
True. 15% is probably too high. Personally, I think 5% is too low for matching funds.
Even if he participates, I don’t believe he’s electable. And therefore, I don’t believe he should participate. If I believed he had a chance in hell of winning, debate or no, I’d say he should debate. But he don’t.
capacitor wrote
It certainly would be more entertaining.
Nader should be allowed in the debates.
Under the current system, the only Democrats and Republicans are “electable.” By Bill H.'s criteria, only Democrats and Republicans should then be in the debates.
If the debates are opened to candidates other than those of the two major parties, it does not follow that every crackpot in America will then have to be included. (There is a name for that kind of fallacious argument, but I can’t remember what it is.)
The debates should be opened to candidates who will likely command a significant percentage of the votes. Perhaps 5%? At this point, it looks like Gore, Bush, Nader, and Buchanan all have a lot of support. All should be allowed to debate.
The major parties are afraid that a third party will gain power, so they want to keep them out. I think that they were really spooked by what happened with Perot in '92–who woulda thunk that a nut like Perot would walk away with 19% of the vote? If the people of America got a chance to hear Nader and to learn more about the Greens, then it is scarily possible that Nader will get as much of the vote as Perot did–or more.
To many Greens, the election of Nader in the year 2000 is not really the point–the point is getting the Green party into a position where they can feasibly hope to win future elections. If Nader is allowed to debate, he will likely get a larger percentage of the total vote than he would have if he had not debated. As the Green party candidate gets more and more of the total vote, then they will gain power and publicity–and matching funds. Once they begin to amass power and money they will be able to spread their message more effectively. And once people hear the Green message, they will vote Green and the two major parties will lose their stranglehold on the American political system.
And that is what they are afraid of.
My brother had a Corvair, too. Rolled that sucker. On a city street. I don’t know how fast he was going, but it was a corvair. Couldn’t of been all that fast.
Peace,
mangeorge