The two parties are rigging the debates
The height of an election season makes it hard to remember that the values that unite us as Americans are greater than that which divides us. In every election, the nation becomes separated by a gaping political chasm.
What’s different this year is the exceedingly large portion of the population — particularly among political independents and millennials — who are deeply dissatisfied with the Democratic and Republican party nominees.
As the Libertarian candidate for President, my message to voters is simple: You have another credible alternative, on the ballot in all 50 states. You can support fiscal responsibility and social inclusion. You don’t need to vote for a candidate you don’t like in order to stop one that you like even less.
Together with former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld — who, like me, was elected and reelected as a Republican governor in an overwhelmingly Democratic state — we’re showing the Americans people that that there is another way to campaign and to govern.
But it requires that voters and the media not fall into the twoparty trap set by those two candidates, their parties, and their partners organizing the debates.
Among truly independent voters, our ticket leads with 31% support, versus 24% for Hillary Clinton and 24% for Donald Trump, according to NBC News. Among millennial voters, according to Quinnipiac University, I’m in a statistical tie with Clinton, 31% to 29%. Among the military, the tables are turned, with Trump and me tied.
Beyond this, we polled at 13% nationally in a recent Quinnipiac Poll. And 62% of Americans told the pollster on Aug. 25 that they specifically wanted me included in the debates.
In spite of all this, the Commission on Presidential Debates decided that only Clinton and Trump will be permitted to speak at Monday night’s debate. That confirmed that the CPD is a twoparty duopoly. It is a partisan organization, and has thus far answered to the will of its masters.
This is everything that is wrong with American politics.
Here I am, polling at higher numbers than Ross Perot had in 1992, when the commission let Perot debate George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
In 2000, the CPD imposed a polling threshold of 15%. That’s unjustifiably high, said a majority of the Annenberg Working Group on Presidential Campaign Debate Reform last year. They favored a 10% threshold for the first debate.
Traditionally, the media have viewed libertarianism as a subspecies of Republicanism. Insofar as I’m running on a platform to balance the budget by forcing Congress to justify their deficit spending, it’s true that I reflect what was once a Republican value of fiscal restraint. We are also the free-market alternative to a protectionist Trump.
But we’re also taking votes from Clinton. That is probably because our platform of criminal justice reform, embracing immigration, legalizing marijuana and opposing Middle East regime change is appealing to many Bernie Sanders supporters.
Voting for our ticket does not make it more likely that one of two disliked candidates will win. Instead, it makes it more likely that independents, fed up with both parties and their bipartisan bickering, will have a voice in Washington.
Our campaign has won endorsements from major newspapers in swing states. And current or former governors from states as varied as California, Indiana, New Jersey, Minnesota, Montana and Massachusetts say the commission needs to include us.
There are already states, including New Mexico and Utah, where our campaign is within striking distance of Trump and Clinton. We have a winning message. We just need to get on the national stage to let voters know we exist.
Include the Libertarian candidate