(Ideas, schmideas. Debates just clutter the political discourse! – promoted by eli_beckerman)

October 4, 2012 update:  I reiterate my standing policy on debates, which is that I will accept all public debate invitations that are made in good faith by an identified sponsor to all ballot-qualified candidates.  This pledge applies both when I am a challenger and when I am an incumbent seeking re-election.

My debate policy was also reiterated when the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance included a question about my willingness to debate on its 2012 candidate questionnaire, which I answered and made public.  Question #4 noted that many incumbents avoid or seek to limit the number of forums they participate in with opponents.  It asked if I would pledge to continue a practice of public debate after election.  The answer, of course, was YES.

The following was originally written in August of 2010.

During the campaign for the 2010 special US Senate election in Massachusetts, Martha Coakley implored upon debate organizers to include all three candidates, but did not go as far as I would have in requiring it.

Many primary and general election races, including the 2010 gubernatorial election in Massachusetts, have more than two candidates.  During the 2008  New Hampshire Republican Party primaries, the state republican party withdrew its sponsorship and endorsement of a debate when Fox News insisted on excluding Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter.  Unfortunately, the other invited candidates did not take a principled stand and the show went on.  (Also unfortunate was the purging of the state party’s brave statement on the subject from its web site a few weeks later.)

In Canada, also in 2008, the ruling party leadership along with a sponsoring media group were compelled to reverse themselves and invite the Green Party leader, Elizabeth May, who had been excluded from a national elections debate.  The general public and one other party leader loudly protested the exclusion.  The show went on with Ms. May present.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/20…

(My Canadian friends tell me that they don’t want their country following the example of their southern neighbor, neither in health care nor in political debates.)

Dennis Kucinich learned during the Democratic Party primary that each debate organizer sets it own criteria.  He witnessed the criteria shift around,  and he learned that other candidates were more than ready to comply with exclusionary practices.  He did not receive the kind of support from any state affiliate of his party that Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter received from the New Hampshire Republican Party.   In one instance, for a debate in Las Vegas in early 2008, he had first been exluded, then formally invited, and then summarily dis-invited.  An appeals court upheld the exclusion, determining that a media corporation had a first amendment right to free speech, which would be violated if the corporation were forced to include a candidate against its wishes.

As a candidate I will not participate in exclusionary debates and as a voter I do not watch them.  This is out of respect for the hard work it takes to get on the ballot and my respect for those who run, regardless of political ideology.  I have walked out of gatherings of people that do tune in, briefly and quietly explaining my reason for doing so.  I missed seeing first-hand what color shoes Sarah Palin wore to the vice presidential debate because Rosa Clemente and three other vice presidential candidates, all of whom were on the ballots in enough states to garner the needed number of electoral college votes to win election, were excluded.

I’ll never forget the woman who approached me and asked an innocent question in Lenox on election day in November, 2008.  I was standing in front of the polling station with a Cynthia McKinney sign.  The woman saw that Cynthia McKinney was the Green Party candidate for president.  She said that she was very happy to see that the Green Party was active.  “We need to hear the green party perspective,” she declared.  I gave her some information about the party.  Then she asked me, “Why was it that the Green Party chose not to be in the presidential debates?”  I let a few moments of silence pass with a small sigh.  The days when the League Of Women Voters organized debates in the spirit of democracy and voter service are long gone.  I provided the woman with a short lesson on the recent history of debate practices.

Let’s insist on real debates.  I’ll see you there.