(Far from being neutral facilitators, the consortia that run election debates have their own agenda–one that dovetails nicely with that of the two “major parties.” The result: a closed-loop in which ad revenues play no small part in determining who’s invited–with the obvious consequences. It’s in the best interests of all citizens that these cynical policies be questioned–and that the debates be opened up! – promoted by michael horan)

   The phone rang yesterday morning a little before 10. The first thing I heard on picking up the receiver was a low din of voices, so I asked, rhetorically, if this was a personal call. It was “Phyllis” calling to ask if I would renew my $40 membership to WGBY-TV in Springfield.

   I asked her if WGBY rebroadcasts the debates of candidates for statewide office that originate on WGBH-TV in Boston.

  She said that WGBH and WGBY are sister stations. She may have been calling from the Boston area because she said she didn’t know whether “you in Western Massachusetts” or “you in the Springfield area” got to see those debates.

  I mentioned that WGBH and WGBY are beneficiaries of the WGBH Educational Foundation, and she seemed to agree. But she was principally concerned with getting me to renew at the $40 level or higher with WGBY.

  I told her I didn’t think I could renew because the last time Jill Stein ran for governor as the Green-Rainbow Party’s nominee, in 2002, she was excluded by the “Consortium,” of which WGBH is a part, from participating in the gubernatorial debates. That was the year Republican Mitt Romney was elected governor, garnering 50 percent of the vote to Democrat Shannon O’Brien’s 45 percent. Stein finished third in a field of five with 76,530 votes, or about 3.5 percent.

  I didn’t elaborate with Phyllis, but some research following our conversation turned up the following from Wikipedia. Romney was elected Massachusetts’ 70th president. He had “successfully organized the 2002 Winter Olympics as President and CEO of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee.” Romney contributed $6.3 million to his gubernatorial campaign, a state record at the time. He is a son of the late George W. Romney — American Motors chairman, three-term Michican governor, 1968 presidential candidate, and U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development — and the late Lenore Romney, 1970 Michigan U.S. senatorial candidate. In 1994 he ran as the Republican nominee in the U.S. Senate election, losing to incumbent Edward M. Kennedy. (Wiki did not say which was the richer candidate in that race.) A management consultant, Romney was the cofounder of Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm.

  According to Wikipedia’s entry for Jill Stein in 2002, “she gained widespread approval for her strong performance in the debates, but this failed to translate into success at the ballot box.” In fact, as the GRP’s John Andrews recalls, “Jill was in two televised debates in 2002. One was on cable only. It was sponsored by Jon Keller. The one on broadcast TV was on Channel 7. She was not admitted to any of the Consortium debates. Nor the Boston Herald debate. Nor the ‘environmental debate’ held at the Kennedy School and sponsored by a number of environmental organizations.”

  But back to Phyllis. She was ready to move on — to another solicitation from a more promising prospect. At my request, she said she would note my reason for not renewing and pass it along.

  What of this consortium? Another member is The Boston Globe, which has seemed to lean over backwards this year, as in 2002, to overlook Jill Stein’s gubernatorial campaign. At present I don’t know the identities of other Consortium members.

  I know this: When a candidate gets on the wrong side of the Consortium, it’s difficult to gain any kind of traction. Money begets advertising. Advertising begets more money, and more money begets more advertising and more “media” attention. More of these beget smarter-looking materials and Internet websites and paid campaign workers and vehicles and more fund-raising capability and more coverage in the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald and consequently more respectable showings in professional polls like the ones conducted by Suffolk University. And so on.

  What is a consortium, anyway? Two definitions are “combination of organizations for common purpose: an association or grouping of institutions, businesses, or financial organizations, usually set up for a common purpose that would be beyond the capabilities of a single member of the group” and “an agreement, combination, or group (as of companies) formed to undertake an enterprise beyond the resources of any one member” (Encarta and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, respectively).

  For all practical purposes, exclusion of a candidate by the Consortium is a boycott. If another boycott by the Globe, WGBH & Company appears to be in the cards, the Consortium deserves a counter-boycott.

  Due diligence for the counter-boycott would require finding answers to the following questions:

  What other institutions are in this combination called the Consortium? Who are the decision-makers who decide whom to exclude? Do the “underwriters” and advertisers that support Consortium members financially merely tolerate the decision-makers’ decision to exclude, or do they actively encourage the exclusion? How best to pressure Consortium members? Through appeals to their underwriters and advertisers? Through a boycott of their underwriters and advertisers? Through a campaign aimed at “members” of exclusionist WGBH and sister WGBY? How should advocates of a fairer, more open debate approach these “members”? Through an email campaign to likely “members”? Through picketing along highly-trafficked routes near the Globe, WGBH, and other Consortium members’ headquarters? Who do these Consortium members think they are? Has the news department of The Globe ever assigned a “Spotlight” team to shine a spotlight on the decision-making process to exclude? Has a Globe columnist ever written about it? Have there been any letters to the editor written to protest the exclusion? Or have they been written, and received, but just not published? What is the exact relationship between the Consortium’s exclusions and the Globe news department’s lack of curiosity regarding the campaigns that don’t have the imprimatur of the Republican and Democratic parties? Or between the Consortium’s exclusions and campaigns that don’t have several million dollars in their treasuries? What’s going on here? Should this be turned into a leaflet to be distributed widely around Boston? Into an email to be distributed widely around Massachusetts?

  Thanks, Phyllis, for the call.