The three presidential debates and sole vice presidential debate will likely exclude third parties, and GOP nominee Donald Trump is just fine with that.
“I’d rather have head to head and right now they’re not getting any numbers,” Trump told The Washington Post in August, saying he wanted to debate Democrat Hillary Clinton and exclude the Green Party’s Jill Stein and Libertarian Gary Johnson.
But when Trump himself was slated to be excluded from the debate stage, he had a different opinion.
In January of 2000, the Reform Party held a press conference that, among other things, discussed the exclusion of third-party candidates from the presidential debates. Then-Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, one of the party’s few endorsed candidates to hold a major office, denounced the exclusion as “despicable.”
Ventura was joined by Trump, who was at the time was considering running for president on the Reform Party ticket.
“I agree 100 percent with Jesse. It’s disgraceful. It’s amazing that they can get away with it,” Trump said during that press conference in 2000.
Trump criticized the threshold — which still exists today — of allowing other candidates into the debate only if they consistently poll at or above 15 percent in national polls.
“I just think it’s unfair … to have such a high standard, a high criteria. For a party that’s a legitimate party, that has a substantial amount of federal funding, that’s recognized,” he said. “Very unfair.”
Watch the relevant section of the press conference:
Trump and Ventura did not suggest an alternative threshold for third party candidates to be allowed into the debate, but some reformers have suggested an alternative rule. They have called for debate access for candidates who achieve enough ballot access to theoretically win and who can achieve either 5 percent in national polls or who polls show Americans want in the debates.
Clinton has yet to speak on the issue of third-party exclusion.
Top photo: Trump and Ventura at their Reform Party press conference in January 2000.
what are they afraid of? all partys should debate the issues. and yes the electoral college should be done away with then all votes would count instead of three states needed to get elected.
Trump still supports open debates this is dumb
Interesting story. How about one on why Hillary Clinton wanted to abolish the Electoral College in 2000 when Bush beat Gore, but now…Not So Much.
So some of you asking where the outrage is… it may be time for you to join us here in reality for a bit. Smoke a bowl if you need help adjusting.
The G20 Summit shows what a mockery our POTUS has become. There was Putin on one hand, being welcomed with red-carpet and band at the airport, feted and sought after by all the countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UK, China, Japan, to name a few. And there was our POTUS being abused with colorful and unprintable phrases by the most insignificant fellow from Philippines. I hang my head in shame. There has never been a more urgent time to make America great again.
The key fraud that is not being pointed out is that they do not ask which candidate you prefer to be president, but which candidate you would vote for if the election were held that day. This is an important distinction, because it unfairly injects the lesser of two evils predicament into the polls themselves early on before we are anywhere near the actually election day. Were they to ask poll which candidates the respondents prefer as opposed to which they would vote for on election day, Jill Stein and Gary Johnson would likely poll radically higher in the first place.
The poor unfavorability ratings of both Trump and Clinton alone would easily leave a pool of 25% of the respondents who would extremely likely choose a third party candidate in the poll if they were asked which candidate they prefer as opposed to which candidate they would settle to vote for were the election held that day. Of the remaining 75% of the respondents who find either Trump or Clinton favorable they would have to be quite a significant percent of people who would hold a third party candidate to be even more favorable. It is even possible that both Stein and Johnson could surpass the 15% threshold based on asking the fairer question to ask at this stage of the election and when determining who should be invited to the debates in the first place (though obviously the 15% threshold should also be radically lowered).
Instant run-off voting would also solve this problem, though I suspect the polling methodology would be easier to attack and change.
Hmmm.., I wonder what the SCOTUS thinks about all of this?
A SECOND LOOK AT THIRD PARTIES: CORRECTING THE SUPREME COURT’S UNDERSTANDING OF ELECTIONS; by DMITRI EVSEEV
http://www.bu.edu/law/journals-archive/bulr/volume85n5/evseev.pdf
The key issue that needs to be expose is the deception of the so-called “commission” – it is not a commission, it is a corporation controlled by the elites of the two big business parties. Why should they decide who is allowed to debate them? They have an obvious conflict of interest and should not be involved in the decision.
The only fair standard is a simple one, that only four candidates have achieved, if you get on enough ballots to win 270 electoral college votes a candidate should be included. Ballot access is a very high hurdle, made intentionally high by the two parties who want to limit their competition. If a candidate can get on enough ballots they have shown they are legitimate and voters should be allowed to hear them.
Trump doesn’t control the debate format. Ask him how future election debates should be handled. Hellary never wanted 3rd parties.
I do think the 5% number would be good for the first debate, 10% by the 2nd, and 15% by the third.
The debate format should certainly not be controlled by the two parties as it is now through a falsely labeled “commission,” a word used to hide the reality — the two business parties decide.
Why should there be any polling? If someone gets through the difficult challenge of ballot access, made difficult by the two parties, they have shown enough support to be included. The problem with a polling percentage is it is determined by the media — do they cover candidates equally? Definitely not. Do they include all candidates in the polls? Only inconsistently.
If we develop a real commission, not a front group for the Dems and Repubs, then new standards could be developed. But, the current standards are designed to prevent inclusion of more than two parties. A poll last week found 76% want four-candidate debates. Why shouldn’t the debates give voters what they want?
Even clearer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o7jnlJPQGk
There might be tactical advantages to inviting a 3rd Party candidate to a debate, if you believe they will siphon off more votes from your opponent. But the major parties know that ultimately, giving additional choices to the voters will come back to bite them. So there is a tacit agreement that both parties will cooperate to smother the emergence of any new ideas or any new party. Bipartisanship may have taken a few body blows in recent years, but it’s still standing.
I, for one, am pleased that the major parties can still cooperate when their mutual shared interests are at stake. The reports of the death of the American political system have been greatly exaggerated.
That sounds like a preamble for the “Commission of Presidential Debates”.
Idk who put them in charge of Presidential Debates … since “The Commission’s debates are sponsored by private contributions from foundations and corporations.”
*That’s why The Intercept should do the Third Way debates … since they give every Tom, Dick and Benito Mussolini equal opportunity anyway.
**they could trend it on twitter #<3 way Presidential Debates … killing two boobies (birds) with one stone
Johnson and Stein being in the debates would free many minds across the USA. I want this, so much.
Donald Trump is absolutely right about how the world has stopped respecting our President. China purposely created such a ruckus at the airport, and ignored the red carpet altogether, when they actually laid it out for their enemies, like that insignificant Modi bloke from India. Our policies, of which Crooked Hillary was a primary part of, are all intended to profit the Clinton Foundation and special interests groups, never mind how disrespectfully our friends and enemies treat us. The Turkeys have found out about our involvement in their coup, thanks to widespread use of leaky servers and unsecured emails, and even the Saudis are conferring with the our enemy Putin who has outsmarted our President Obama in every sphere mainly due to his reliance on the most worthless group of secretaries and aides that he has somehow managed to gather around him.
Instead of criticizing Donald Trump, please realize the accuracy of his statements and hope he becomes President and restores some of the prestige back to our country that we last enjoyed many, many years ago.
“candidates who achieve enough ballot access to theoretically win”
That level of ballot access would be: On the ballot in no states.
Trump is a coward — a total coward. Otherwise he would insist that America hit outfits like Apple, which pay virtually no taxes to the United States, must repay the tens of billions of back taxes they have refused to pay but which the European Union now says must be at least partially repaid to Ireland where Apple has located its headquarters and is permitted to pay almost absolutely no taxes. Trump is a stinking coward, just like the Bush, Obama and Clinton families. May they all suddenly be hit with crippling dementia and be offered no help.
As a citizen he wanted a fair and open election, as a candidate he wants to win.
These two candidates are so threatened by third parties they won’t even allow them to speak. What does that tell you, America?
Revolution’s easy–vote third party!
Useful knowledge. If they lock out both Johnson and Stein, the two of them could conceivably hold a simultaneous debate. This leads me to believe they’ll let Johnson in, which is great because he said he’d open the debate by calling Trump a “pussy”, and he strikes me as a man of his word.
wah bro toadily awesome
Hey, don’t take my werd for it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FitCoZ0kGpE
Becuase Trump has never cussed in the course of this campaign?