In half hour personal interview and a half hour panel intereview on the "Larry King Talk Show" Phil Donahue, emphasised again and again that other political candidates should be allowed to participate in the upcoming Presidential Debates.

The discussion also centered around the fact that a person was just throwing away their vote by not supporting Gore or Bush. But Donahue said that it is not so. Citing the last Presidential election he said that over fifty percent of the elgible voters did not vote. A sort of protest against an entrenched two party system. He also cited the fact that now Governer, Jesse Ventura was not given much of a chance of winning in Minnesota as a third party candidate but did as an indication that it has and could happen again.

What Ralph Nader said a few months ago, Phil Donahue, echoed again and again last nite.

Here is a Statement by Ralph Nader on The Great Debate Lock-Out:

Today, I want to challenge the Republican and Democratic parties to take the initiative in opening up the presidential debates. The Commission on Presidential Debates is a creature of the two parties. Albert Gore and George W. Bush are the titular heads of their parties, and they clearly have the power to open the debates to third parties.

Gore and Bush are hiding behind the Commission’s outlandish and unfair set of rules to avoid the issues that would be raised if the Green and Reform parties were allowed in the debates.

Gore and Bush should issue a joint demand that the Commission open the debates and reject the sponsorship of the debates by beer companies and other corporate donors.

The debates have now become a central part of the election process. Millions of voters apparently make up their minds on what they hear in these debates. To shut out legitimate third party candidates from these debates is to limit the competitive democratic process on which the American electoral system is supposed to be built.

Polls show that the American people want the debates opened to my candidacy and that of Pat Buchanan. But the demands of the people mean little to Gore and Bush. It is very important to them that the electoral process remains a closed door affair between the Republican and Democratic parties.

They want to keep the debates narrow, the issues few and the information l imited. If we are to keep democracy alive and vibrant, we cannot allow the Democratic and Republican parties to control the information that reaches the American people. The Democratic and Republican parties, operating through the Commission they created, have declared presidential campaigns an insider game.

This is the people’s election. They should seize it back from the Democratic and Republican parties and their corporate sponsors.

Again, I want to emphasize that George W. Bush and Albert Gore have the power to end this charade that is being called a "presidential debate."

Why are these two men afraid? They should overcome their fear of facing new ideas and alternative voices, and open the process for the American people.

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CLOSED BALLOTS

by: George Szamuely
New York Press Taki's Top Drawer

The news that Michigan Gov. John Engler and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush are seeking to keep Pat Buchanan off the ballot in their states in November barely caused a ripple. While the United States keeps a watchful eye on electoral fraud all over the world, it appears to take a much more benign view of ballot rigging here at home. Every election is fixed to ensure that interlopers are kept out. There are four prominent candidates running for the presidency. But the presidential debates?generally agreed to be the most important event in the election calendar?will feature only the nominees of the two major parties. The Commission on Presidential Debates has ruled that to get into the debates a candidate must be able to enjoy at least 15 percent support in the polls.

Fifteen percent is well beyond the reach of any politician who lacks the financial resources to buy saturation media coverage the way Ross Perot did in 1992. Moreover, the reliance on opinion polls is absurd. The purpose of any opinion poll is not to elicit information but to pressure people into falling into line. The "majority" opinion is obviously the correct one and must therefore be adopted. This "majority" is invariably an artificial creation, the product of carefully crafted questions. Polls are, remember, quite expensive, and they are paid for by interested parties who want to see certain results. The questions are usually devoid of meaning. A Mori polling handbook instructs interviewers who are asked what a question means to reply, "Whatever you want it to mean." Thus, "Is Bill Clinton doing a good or a bad job as president?" rather depends on what the job of president entails. The opinions of those who refuse to take part?people sensible enough not to drop everything to start chatting with a complete stranger on the phone?do not register in the poll results. Those who refuse to answer a pollster because they find the question silly will have their opinions remain unregistered. There is no possibility of a more complicated reply that does not fit into the multiple-choice quiz format of the questioner.

It is hard also to take seriously the requirement that a candidate must achieve a minimum poll number. The polls are often wrong. They vary widely, and they fluctuate so wildly as to render them almost totally devoid of credibility. How can George W. Bush be up by 17 points one week, and down by as much as eight points a few weeks later? The American electorate simply is not that volatile. Since no dramatic events are taking place, and no hotly contested issues are being debated, the poll numbers reflect little more than responses to the poll numbers. The polls generate stories about the "Gore surge," which in turn serve to boost the Gore numbers, thereby leading to more stories about the "Gore surge" and so on.

While the United States is perpetually concerned about "opposition figures" getting media access in places like Yugoslavia, the cozy relationship here between the media and the political establishment is rarely up for discussion. The millions that the two major political parties raise from their donors, as well as the federal matching funds they collect, are largely spent on advertising. The money goes directly into the pockets of the giant media corporations. Thus the media has every interest in flattering the two major parties and neglecting the minority parties. The media also conducts the opinion polls. It is instructive how often they ask respondents whom they intend to vote for, Bush or Gore, without so much as hinting that there might be other alternatives.

It is very unlikely also that the United States would be particularly understanding toward another country if it imposed electoral hurdles on independent parties as numerous and as terrifying as the ones on the statute books here. Most states require third parties to gather tens of thousands of signatures for a petition to be on the state ballot. There are also often strict deadlines on the gathering of such signatures. A candidate for president running in the Democratic or Republican primary can get on the ballot simply by paying a filing fee, although some states do require that a primary candidate submit a petition signed by a not especially large number of voters. By contrast, a candidate running as an independent in the general election will have to collect thousands of petition signatures in each state to be on the ballot.

Independent presidential candidates and third-party nominees need approximately 750,000 valid signatures to be on the general election ballot of all 50 states. For Democrats and Republicans, access is virtually automatic. Democratic Party candidates require 25,500 signatures and Republican Party candidates 54,250 signatures. Thirty-two of the 41 states that hold presidential primaries require no signatures from the major-party candidates. Candidates who, amazingly, manage to get on 50 state ballots end up exhausted and penniless, very much like Pat Buchanan. Were it not for the federal matching funds, his campaign would be more or less over today.

These ballot restrictions were enacted for the sole purpose of denying third parties and independent candidates access to power. In 1924, only 50,000 petition signatures were required to place a new party on the ballot in 48 states. During the 1930s, laws were passed to make ballot access increasingly more difficult. New parties had to gather more and more signatures and to file for application earlier and earlier in the campaign year. In the aftermath of George Wallace?s remarkable run, ballot-access became extraordinarily difficult.

Perhaps Milosevic should send over a Yugoslav observer mission to monitor November?s election.

Angela M. Buchanan Treasurer

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