A recent Zogby poll shows that a majority of likely voters favor the inclusion of Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate for President, in the forthcoming series of debates between McCain and Obama. By a smaller margin, they also want Ralph Nader to be included.
Currently, neither candidate can participate because
[t]he CPD requires that to be included in their debates, candidates must appear on enough state ballots to have a mathematical chance of winning a majority of Electoral College votes, and must be winning at least 15% support in national public opinion polls before the debates.
I can see the justification in not featuring in debates candidates who, mathematically, just can’t gain enough electoral votes to win.
But the requirement that candidates (who could hypothetically win the contest) achieve certain numbers in national public opinion polls seems more dubious. Beyond pointing out that national opinion polls have no particular god-like perspective on the world, these candidates could plausibly argue that they would gain significantly in the polls if they received media coverage comparable to the major party candidates, but that they can’t receive that coverage without high polling numbers. Through this negative feedback loop, the system is gamed against them. In some cases, debates may be the only way that candidates can reach out to a wider audience. Isn’t it in the public interest to present the widest array of available ideologies and policy options from which the American people can choose? Isn’t genuine electoral choice essential to a functioning democracy? It is, and it is.
This isn’t a partisan issue. Barr would hurt McCain’s numbers and Nader would hurt Obama’s (although, I suspect, he might also draw self-described “independents” from McCain). It’s at root a fairness issue. We should aim for full equality for all presidential candidates. In the absence of such equality, I think it would be a fair compromise to have two rounds of debate, one that initially included all the qualifying candidates for President, and another for the front-runners.
If you watched any of the early primary debates, and especially the Republican debates where there were serious angry ideological differences between the candidates, you also know a diverse field can make for awesome television. Not that such shallow silly considerations should shape our national politics. Certainly not. We know they never have.