Bipartisanship or democracy?

If you support a progressive agenda, then support a progressive candidate.

There may be a presidential debate tomorrow, if Republican candidate St. John decides to participate. But I won't watch it. It won't really help me make an informed decision because it will exclude most of the candidates.

There are at least five candidates that I know of with a mathematical chance of winning. By mathematical chance, I mean they are enough state ballots whose electoral vote totals combine to at least 270.

Those five candidates are St. John, Democrat Barack Obama, Libertarian Bob Barr, independent Ralph Nader and Green Cynthia McKinney. I strongly suspect there are at least one or two more. But of those 5-7 candidates, only 2 have been invited. Why?

The presidential debates used to be run by a non-partisan group called the League of Women Voters. The LWV still sponsors many debates at state, local and Congressional levels. In the mid-80s, the two-party Duopoly decided they wanted to seize control of the debates and decided to stop cooperating with the widely respected LWV. The League argued that a change in sponsorship that put control of the debate format in the hands of the two dominant parties would deprive voters of one of the only chances they have to see the candidates outside of their controlled campaign environment.

But the Duopoly persisted and created the the Presidential Debate Commission.

The commission is bipartisan entity created and controlled by the two corporate parties. Its two co-chairmen are former heads of the Democratic and Republican National Committees. Most of its members are former Democratic and Republican elected officials, appointees or money men.

Befitting its control of the two corporate parties, the debates have over several corporate sponsors.

So the corporate party-run and corporate-sponsored debate commission excludes candidates from non-corporate parties. The Democrat- and Republican-controlled commission excludes candidates who aren't Democrats and Republicans.

This isn't exactly shocking, but it is disgusting.

Imagine if baseball's rules on payrolls were written by the Red Sox and the Yankees.

The corporate debate commission has two objective criteria for which candidates they allow. The first is constitutional eligibility. The second is whether they have a mathematical chance of winning an electoral college majority, as I described above.

These objective criteria should be the only criteria.

But if this were it, then people might actually be exposed to the ideas of non-corporate candidates. And we can't have that.

So the bipartisan, not non-partisan, commission arbitrarily decides to restrict participation to candidates who have received the arbitrary figure of an average 15 percent support in five arbitrarily chosen polls.

The corporate media blackout on non-corporate candidates essentially prevents them from getting anywhere near 15 percent in the polls, unless they can buy their own media coverage. How can candidates like Nader, McKinney, Barr and others gain widespread support in the polls if citizens are never exposed to their ideas through the media?

Non-corporate candidates are being told that they won't be given a forum until they prove they are popular... which of course is almost impossible if they're never given a forum. The corporate candidates buy their forum with the huge campaign bribes they receive (from corporate America of course... see how it's all one giant circle).

Smaller party and independent candidates don't get these huge "donations" and are ignored by the media. So how can they effectively get their message across to the masses?

The only non-corporate party candidate ever admitted by this commission was Ross Perot, who bought the poll numbers with his own money.

When smaller party and independent candidates ARE given something close to a fair shake, they often do well. Green Matt Gonzalez (now Ralph Nader's running mate) came within a whisker of winning the runoff to become San Francisco's mayor after getting a fair amount of media coverage.

Independence Party candidate Jesse Ventura was at a few percent in the polls for Minnesota governor. But after his participation in the debates, which apparently were done fairly because he was invited, his numbers skyrocketed and he eventually won the election. At first, no one supported him because no one had heard anything about him. People don't support unknowns. But as soon as he participated in the debates and people were exposed to his ideas, they liked what they here.

This is democracy.

This is what Democrats and Republicans are desperately trying to prevent.

The Duopoly will use all kinds of excuses. They will say that huge debates will be unworkable. Canada's upcoming elections will feature a pair of debates that include five party leaders. The last mayoral election in my city had debates that also included five candidates. They sky hasn't fallen yet because of this.

The Duopoly will say people aren't interested in smaller party and independent candidates. This is a lie. According to the polls they venerate so much, 44 percent of those polled agree that "the United States' system is broken and cannot be fixed by traditional two-party politics and elections."

The Duopoly will say that these are nothing more than "fringe" candidates with whacky ideas. Of course, if they were that far on the extreme, the Duopoly would have nothing to fear in allowing their participation. If anything, the Democrat and Republican would look moderate by comparison. But in reality, they know that these candidates have some good ideas.

Basically, they think you're too stupid and unsophisticated to handle more than two choices at once.

The excuses presented by the two corporate parties are based in nothing more than self-interest. Their self-interest, not yours. Really accountability is the last thing they want.

This collusion is nothing less than crooked. This collusion is nothing less than the rape of our democracy. And I'm sorry to tell my well-intentioned, but sometimes blinkered liberal friends that the Democrats are just as guilty in this rape as the GOP. Even the major party names are fraudulent. The Democrats' leadership believes in plutocracy, not democracy. The Republicans' leadership believes in the empire, not the republic.

All debates should invite every candidate with a mathematical chance of winning. It's fair. It's democratic.

The viability of each candidate should be decided on election day by the voters, by no one else and at no other time.

Let people decide who they're interested in hearing and who they don't care about. Let the citizens hear everyone's ideas and make up their own minds. Don't let the closed shop make this decision for you.

There are other things that need to be done as well. The biggest being the reform of rigged electoral laws in many states. As The Post-Star put it in an editorial: Up until the 1880s in this country, there were no obstacles keeping candidates from getting on the ballot. But as third-party candidates racked up victories against the major political parties of the day, those parties, which were in power, introduced more and more stringent ballot requirements, such as requiring a large number of signatures or an entry fee to qualify.

These two things, combined with a sane campaign finance system, are essential to restoring American democracy.

But for now, it's fair to say that if Americans are presented 10 different brands of white bread on the supermarket shelf, then surely they deserve more than two presidential choices.