The Sun’s selective outrage over debates

I found The Sun’s hand wringing over the sparsity of gubernatorial debates a bit disingenuous (“Who lost the Md. gubernatorial debate? The voters,” Sept. 10). This issue is bigger than this one political contest. Ben Cardin secured his senatorial nomination without debating his opponents. There’s been no mention of televised debates for the general election contest for U.S. senator, and for that matter for our congressional offices in general.

In 2016, despite nominating two extremely controversial candidates for president, the two major parties in conjunction with the media, were able to deny entry to televised debates to a third party on the ballot in all 50 states with a ticket of two two-term governors. The power to deny coverage and debates is the power to veto candidacies, and the media is a willing partner in this on a regular basis. It’s one thing for the motion picture industry to prejudge which movies are too “sophisticated” for suburban audiences; it’s quite another thing for the media to prejudge which candidates are “competitive.” Neither the candidates nor the media should determine the schedule of interviews and debates for major public office. This should be viewed as a public right to know in a democracy, and to that effect, should be codified for congressional, gubernatorial and presidential primaries and general elections.

A rotating requirement for presenting interviews and debates should be imposed on the networks that broadcast over the public airwaves (and whoreap large profits off paid political advertising). This election reform would not only elevate our political discourse, it would diminish the role of money in our politics. The problem with public financing of campaigns is that nothing prevents the money becoming windfalls for Madison Avenue designers of negative ads and the TV stations that broadcast them.

Finally, one additional election reform would appreciably moderate partisan campaigning and governing — let unaffiliated voters participate. Our partisan, gridlocked politics has repulsed many new voters to the point they feel party affiliation would contaminate them. It’s time to open our primary elections to them.