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Wednesday, January 02, 2008
ABC & Fox Bar Six Presidential Candidates From NH Debate
Posted by Justin Jeffre
Photo courtesy of here.
ABC and Fox will shut out six Democratic and Republican candidates from debates this weekend in New Hampshire. Democrats Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel will be excluded from ABC’s undemocratic debate on Saturday. Republicans Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter will be excluded from a debate hosted by Fox on Sunday. But do these self appointed gatekeepers have any business interfering with our democratic process?
Though the most important part of the electoral process is to have a deep discussion about the direction of our country, partisan corporations are allowed to dictate which candidates are allowed to have a voice and which don’t. It’s bad enough that these powerful corporations benefit from our corrupt campaign finance system while getting to use our public airwaves for free, but they are stifling this important discussion and our democratic process.
(The FCC continues to push for more media consolidation despite the public’s loud objections and fails to make broadcasters meet the minimum requirements of the past. Most recently the FCC gave big media a big Christmas gift allowing one corporation to own TV and radio stations as well as the daily paper in a town. The FCC no longer requires equal airtime or that broadcasters live up to their responsibility to inform our electorate about all the candidates that the voters will see on the ballot.)
In 2006 WCPO gave free airtime during the gubernatorial debates to Republican candidate Ken Blackwell and Democratic candidate Ted Strickland while excluding Libertarian candidate Bill Peirce and Green candidate Bob Fitrakis. Peirce and Fitrakis were excluded despite the fact that they both met the requirements to be placed on the ballot in a real Democratic process.
A large number of signatures from registered voters are required to be placed on the ballot. A much smaller and usually undisclosed number of people who may or may not be registered voters are called by private corporations early in the campaign season and asked who they would likely vote for if the election were held today. The public has no way of knowing who was called, how they were selected and if they are in fact registered voters at all. And why should this override a more democratic process anyway?
The corporate media fails to cover candidates early in the campaign season and then they use secretive and undemocratic polls as a basis for excluding those that haven’t raised the kind of campaign contributions needed to purchase big media buys. Candidates can travel all around the state or nation and have town hall meetings and still not reach a tenth of the number of people that watch televised debates.
Locally, Channel 12 recently gave some big money council candidates free airtime by having them on their popular Sunday show “Newsmakers.” They refused to give equal time to other candidates. Cumulus radio did the same while other media outlets didn’t even bother to cover the race at all. During the 2005 Mayoral race, I was told by a sales rep from Fox that they could have me on their Sunday morning show, but that they “usually only have on candidates that do advertising with them.” By contrast, in France they have multiple parties and real debates. There were 12 Presidential candidates and they were all given a half hour of free airtime. Perhaps this is why France has a higher voter participation rate.
The Commission on Presidential Debates acts as another filter and will decide who can participate in the debates after the primaries are over. This commission is really a private corporation that is run by two corporate lobbyists. One is a corporate Democrat and the other is a corporate Republican. In 1996 they were even allowed to exclude a billionaire named Ross Perot that received about 19% of the vote in the previous election despite the fact that he withdrew and then jumped back into the race.
Instead of a vibrant debate from A to Z (in the nation that proclaims itself a model of democracy to be imposed on the rest of the world), we get a debate from A to B, or shall we say D to F. By excluding candidates like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich the corporate media takes important issues off of the table like ending the war in Iraq, repealing or renegotiating NAFTA and the so called free trade agreements, or reinstating our constitution and civil liberties.
These are important issues that the public supports and deserves to hear a vibrant debate about, but these positions don’t fit within the narrowly defined parameters of what is acceptable debate to the status quo or rulers of this country. While these charades we refer to as debates fail to be democratic or fully inform our electorate, they are the best cure for insomnia. It’s time for the American people to wake up and demand real media and election reform now or our nation will continue to move in the direction of a third world dictatorship.
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02 Jan 2008 at 08:59 pm | #
You’re 100% right, Justin. Well said. If only some of the included candidates had the balls to tell ABC/Fox to stick it.
02 Jan 2008 at 09:11 pm | #
.
No they do not. The voters should boycott the debates and refuse to watch. The participants should refuse to attend.
Somehow, their self-interest won’t allow that.
.
02 Jan 2008 at 10:01 pm | #
Actually, Clinton and Edwards were overheard several months ago saying that other candidates should be excluded. They didn’t realize their mics were still on.
02 Jan 2008 at 10:19 pm | #
THE LATEST ON THE FAUX FIASCO!
http://ronpaul.meetup.com/281/boards/view/viewthread?thread=3986042&pager.offset=0
03 Jan 2008 at 08:29 am | #
Well, if it wasn’t obvious before that the media controls the election, it should be now. Corporate/Media America controls virtually every aspect of our life.
I just don’t see any end in sight.
03 Jan 2008 at 10:52 am | #
Justin, You’re absolutely right, but how do we, the people, fix it? We need some new ideas. Protests and letter-writing don’t seem to be working. Vera Z.
04 Jan 2008 at 12:19 pm | #
Vera Z, we need to create more independent media outlets and continue to put pressure on the FCC to regulate broadcasters more strictly. We need to make corporate control of the media a major campaign issue and ask polticians what they are going to do to change it and get them under control.
I think we should organize and boycott media outlets that do this and boycott their advertisers as well.
We need to support independent media outlets like http://www.democracynow.org, http://www.freespeechtv.org and http://www.linktv.org. You can go to http://www.freepress.net to find out more about the growing media reform movement. The national media reform convention is coming up soon.
04 Jan 2008 at 07:21 pm | #
I understand your point. People should have the right to see and understand the viewpoints of all candidates involved. But let’s be realistic: these excluded candidates are NOT going to win and have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. I would rather watch a debated between Clinton, Obama, and Edwards for 2 hours where each has more time to expound their views, than what a 2 hour debate with three other candidates that have no chance of winning a party nomination anyway.
04 Jan 2008 at 07:43 pm | #
Who cares, people that believe in a democratic process care. What we have in this country is far from it. Americans vote mostly based on name recognition and Party lines. This is obviously not an informed way to vote.
By having all the candidates included in televised debates you would have an informed electorate which is critical to any functioning democracy. Once again, the most important part of the electoral process is to have a deep discussion about the direction of our country.
We don’t need to just hear from candidates that support the war, the Patriot Act and NAFTA. We should hear alternative ideas about how best to move our country forward.
Other countries have multiple parties and all the candidates are included. Again, France had twelve candidates and they each got a half hour. If it’s realistic there, it’s realistic here. We just need to demand more.
American elections are dumbed down to soundbites and PR campaigns to sell poll driven corporate policies. Our nations is in serious decline and we need more voices and choices, not less.
You have to ask yourself why the other candidates have no chance. Isn’t it because they haven’t raised enough corporate cash? Should the rich really decide who’s a viable, serious or worthy candidate? Isn’t that plutocracy and not a democracy? How can we bring democracy to the middle east when we don’t have it here? Why are we really there and can we really afford it?
Dennis Kucinch and Ron Paul have many popular positions, but they are ignored and marginalized by the corporate media that has an agenda that doesn’t suport those positions.
We have pundits and undemocratic polls that try to shape public opinion and manufacture consent for policies that don’t represent the interest of the majority of the American people. We deserve better and if you are too lazy to want to be informed about where the candidates stand and who represents your views best, you shouldn’t be voting.
05 Jan 2008 at 03:33 am | #
OBAMA ‘08.
The people have spoken and ARE speaking. And for the record...Kucinich has lent his support as well.
05 Jan 2008 at 01:04 pm | #
anon, there are still a lot of primaries left and it isn’t over by any means. For the record Kucinch only supported Obama in Iowa. You get two ballots in this process.