The 2004 Elections
The "Bait" in the U.S. Presidential Debates
By Les Blough, Editor
Sep 30, 2004, 20:21
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"We have no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American people,''
- The League of Women Voters in retreating
from sponsorship of a scheduled
1988 presidential debate
Bush and Kerry are squaring off tonight, but not against each other.
They are squaring off against the American people, using a pantomime of democracy to lure them into validating their own bondage by their votes.
The "bait" in the U.S. Presidential debates is well-placed and cleverly concealed from the U.S. voter. We have been researching the history of the U.S. Presidential debates for months. The withdrawal of the League of Women Voters as sponsors of the presidential debates in 1988 reveals how the U.S. citizen is fooled into biting, unaware of the hook. The following statement by the League of Women Voters in 2003 is a reminder of their decision in 1988:
Statement on the Presidential Debates for the General Election
"The debates are firmly in the control of the Presidential Debates Commission for the general elections. Given this fact, there is little incentive for the commission to co-sponsor and therefore to share decision-making, for the debates with other organizations. Similarly, there is little incentive for the candidates to debate outside the "safe" environment created by the party-controlled commission. Thus, the LWVEF does not anticipate any direct involvement in presidential general election debates."
The Presidential Debates of 2004 are an insult to real democracy, and an example of the kind of "democracy" the US-Led Corporate Empire seeks to plant in sovereign nations abroad. This kind of sophisticated mind-control is a formidable weapon against real democracy and honest elections. It also seeks to hide the fact that the U.S. citizen is never given a real choice in electing their president. We flatly reject this deception by the U.S. Government and their attendant corporate media. Millions of unsuspecting U.S. citizens will watch the so-called "debates" by George W. Bush, John Kerry, Dick Cheney and John Edwards in 2004, beginning tonight. We include two articles below that provide details of the withdrawal by the League of Women Voters and the debate fraud now sponsored by The Commission on Presidential Debates. The first article is by Jeff Milchen, SFGate and the second, an editorial by Open Debates. - Les Blough, Editor
Originally published on Tuesday, August 22, 2000 in the San Francisco Gate
Presidential Debate Is Really Duopoly by Design
By Jeff Milchen
WE HAVE NO INTENTION of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American people,'' proclaimed the League of Women Voters in retreating from sponsorship of a scheduled 1988 presidential debate. The League withdrew to expose the Democrats' and Republicans' attempt to dictate every detail -- down to camera placement -- of the "debates'' that today deserve to be called infomercials.
The League withdrew to expose the Democrats' and Republicans' attempt to dictate every detail -- down to camera placement -- of the "debates'' that today deserve to be called infomercials.
The LWV has not participated since, but was replaced by an entity with no such reservations about subverting democracy -- or subjecting viewers to events that make watching professional bowling a more engaging alternative.
To America's disgrace, a private corporation now directs the televised presidential debates. The Commission on Presidential Debates, a joint creation of the Democratic and Republican parties, has -- surprise! -- created rules that will shut out any third party or independent candidates and displays only its owners' nominees.
Imagine the revolt that would occur if Americans were dictated to choose from only two brands of beer, yet there's barely a murmur over our being denied a choice outside of the two corporate-approved candidates! We should recognize the importance of democratic debate and regain authority over of this foundation for informed voting.
The televised debates are the single most influential forum for American voters and offer a rare opportunity to hear candidates' ideas in more than 10-second sound bites. Real debates now have been replaced by -- in the CPD's own words -- ``nationally televised joint appearances between nominees of the two major political parties.''
Yet the CPD has the nerve to call itself ``nonpartisan.'' The CPD effectively decides which candidates we see with no public accountability. Major corporations invest up to $550,000 to sponsor the events. The corporate sponsors are unlikely to protest the exclusion of candidates questioning, say, the legitimacy of corporations funding political parties and campaigns. Citizens should. New CPD requirements mandate that a candidate possess the expected votes of 15 percent of the public to share a stage with the two dominant parties' candidates -- three times the 5 percent threshold parties must meet to receive public election funds. Moreover, the five corporate media polls (ABC News/Washington Post; CBS News/New York Times; NBC News/Wall Street Journal; CNN/USA; Today/Gallup and Fox News/Opinion Dynamics) used to determine support routinely add the option of third-party candidates only after asking whether the respondent supports Bush or Gore.
In the previous 40 years, only two candidates from outside the two dominant parties have participated in the presidential debates: John Anderson in 1980 and Ross Perot in 1992.
Though he ran as an independent, in 1980 Anderson was an incumbent Republican congressman with the enormous advantages of 20 years in office -- yet he polled only 13 to 18 percent just prior to the debates and took 7 percent of the popular vote.
In October 1992, independent candi date Perot polled at less than 10 percent prior to the debates, well under the present absurd barriers, but captured 19 percent of the popular vote after the debates. His inclusion helped boost voting by a stunning 12 million from the previous presidential election.
Unhappy with Perot's populist critique of the sacred corporate ``free trade'' pacts, the CPD raised the barriers to participation the next election cycle and excluded him from the debates, labeling him ``unelectable.'' Of course, the power to hide a candidate makes any such label self-fulfilling.
Without a dissenting voice to create real debate, less than half as many Americans watched the 1996 Clinton/Dole snooze- fest as the three-way debates in 1992. Notably, viewership dropped with each debate, in contrast to the three-way 1992 debates, which drew progressively larger audiences. The exclusive CPD forums seem destined to further diminish public interest.
Jesse Ventura's election as governor of Minnesota in 1998 offers a more recent illustration of the absurdity of CPD criteria. Ventura averaged just 10 percent support in September polls before participating in five televised debates, and no major poll identified him as a front-runner, yet he decisively won the November election.
With more than 200 declared presidential candidates, limiting the number of debate participants certainly is necessary, but even a minimal standard -- requiring that candidates appear on enough state ballots to have a mathematical chance to win -- would currently limit the field to five.
Regardless of one's views on the optimum number of debaters, an unaccountable private corporation has no place controlling this vital part of our democratic process. The CPD's duopoly-by-design must be replaced with a public body that will nourish, not subvert democracy. We should also question how deeply our democracy is damaged for this situation to exist.
Jeff Milchen is the founder of ReclaimDemocracy.org, a nonprofit group dedicated to reviving American democracy and revoking illegitimate corporate power over society.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/08/22/ED11973.DTL
Dreary Formats
an editorial by
OPEN DEBATES
Under CPD [Commission on Presidential Debates] sponsorship, the major party candidates secretly design all the elements of the formats. Consequently, challenging questions, assertive moderators, follow-up questions, candidate-to-candidate questioning, rebuttals and surrebuttals are often excluded from the presidential debates. The CPD's formats prevent in-depth examination of critical issues, and allow the candidates to the deliver pre-packaged soundbites that are repeated over, and over, and over again on the campaign trail.
At first glance, the CPD seems to have had a neutral, if not positive, effect on presidential debate formats. Unlike the League of Women Voters, the CPD managed to escape the restrictive Press Panelist Format, which consisted of seated reporters asking all the questions. The CPD hosted the first Single Moderator and Town Hall presidential debates.
But the CPD never developed the "new" formats. The major party candidates, for various reasons, chose to break from the Press Panelist Format. For example, the CPD publicly took credit for selecting the popular town-hall format when, in fact, Governor Clinton came up with the format in 1992 because it paraded his interpersonal skills.
Moreover, as a consequence of major-party manipulation, a structural deficiency still mars all CPD-sponsored debates: they are not really debates. Despite the purported format diversity, the public is still left with glorified news conferences. The only difference from joint news conference to joint news conference is who asks all the questions - a panel of reporters or Jim Lehrer or a group of undecided voters. The candidates never speak to each other, and because they are peppered by a succession of disparate questions, they superficially glaze over the issues, reciting a series of memorized soundbites. "It's too much show business and too much prompting, too much artificiality, and not really debates," said former President George Bush. "They're rehearsed appearances."
Most importantly, while the basic formats have changed for the better, the structure and the rules governing them have become much worse. Candidates have extensively manipulated the details within the selected formats to eliminate the remaining shreds of spontaneity:
- When the League of Women Voters sponsored the debates, panelists and moderators were always permitted follow-up questions, which allowed them to get past rehearsed answers, really delve into an issue, and challenge the responses of the candidates. But when the CPD took over, the candidates banned or limited follow-up questions.
- The candidates have strictly prohibited themselves from questioning each other. All the Memoranda of Understanding stipulate, "There will be no direct candidate-to-candidate questioning."
- In 1980, the League of Women Voters selected Bill Moyers, "the conscience of American journalism," to serve as moderator after consulting with the Nieman Foundation, Pulitzer Prize authorities, the Radio and TV News Directors Association, Newspaper Publishers' Association, and the American Society of Newspaper Editors. It is unlikely, however, that someone as engaging as Moyers will ever moderate a CPD-sponsored debate. The CPD allows the major party candidates to handpick the panelists and moderators. As to be expected, the candidates select moderators and panelists who ask predictable, safe questions. For the past three election cycles, the candidates have selected Jim Lehrer, host of PBS's Newshour, to moderate every presidential debate. Lehrer is a passive moderator who doesn't believe in challenging the candidates. After the 2000 presidential debates, Senator John Kerry said, "You could have picked 10 people off the street who didn't know Jerusalem from Georgia and they would have had better questions." [Note: Due to Open Debates' unprecedented pressure, the CPD proposed moderators for the 2004 debates for the first time in the CPD's history. The Kerry and Bush campaigns accepted those moderators, resulting in four different moderators for the first time in 12 years. This is important victory for the debate reform movement. However, had Kerry and Bush rejected the CPD's proposed panelists -- which were chosen because of the likelihood that the candidates would accept them -- the CPD would not have publicly protested. The CPD never publicly criticizes the candidates.]
- According to polls and focus groups, the general public prefers debates that give candidates more time to answer questions. Restrictive time limits can reduce the candidates' responses to memorized soundbites. Nonetheless, response times have been severely whittled down under CPD sponsorship. In 1984, the LWV allotted the candidates 4.5 minutes per question sequence, whereas in 1996, the CPD limited the candidates' responses to a mere 90 seconds.
- Viewers and pundits have praised the town hall format for maximizing spontaneity and citizen participation. But with no opposition from the CPD, major party negotiators transformed the popular format into a staged charade. In 1992, audience members could ask anything they wanted, including follow-up questions. In 1996, follow-ups and questions seeking clarification were banned. In 2000, the questions actually had to be written down on index cards and screened by moderator Jim Lehrer before the debates.
The CPD is partly responsible for these format deficiencies. No other sponsor has allowed the major party candidates to negotiate exclusively. No other sponsor has implemented, without protest, Memoranda of Understanding that eliminate spontaneity, accountability and confrontation.
http://www.opendebates.com/theissue/drearyformat.html
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