The issue isn’t electability, short-cutting, or anything other than fair democracy. In a fair democracy every candidate has an equal chance and equal opportunity. Now, the Libertarians, Greens, Constitutionalist, and others already start out handicapped, by having to pay huge sums to get onto ballots that the Democrats and Republicans get onto for free. Non-status-quo candidates already have to deal with media opposition and rampant election fraud, as evidenced by the Ron Paul campaign—and he was running as Republican. Folks, there are third-world countries that run cleaner, fairer democratic processes than we do here in America. We should be ashamed.

Damn right, Barr should be included in the debates, and so should Nader, Baldwin, or any other candidate who has properly complied with level-playing field requirements. Why? Well, one, because it is right, just, and fair, but, two, because the American people deserve to hear as broad a range of ideas and positions as are truly represented in the American population. When John McCain stands up there and represents conservatives as being pro-war, and Barack Obama stands up there and represents liberals as being pro-socialist, they are not speaking for the whole of America. 70% of the American people are against the Iraq war. As many as 30% of conservatives are not only not Republican war-hawks, but also advocate a non-interventionist foreign policy. That is 140 and 15 million(!) people respectively. Those people have a right to be represented on that stage by people who will accurately represent their views. And so do “market-liberals” who do not buy into the New Left socialism that current grips the Democratic Party.

Both the Democrats and Republicans have become the parties of “big,” big money, big interests, and big extremes. Neither of them truly represents the views of the average American, who does not have a big bank accounts, who is not a big corporation, or a big lobby, or a big union, or a big extremist socialist or neo-con. Only the small parties are representing the smaller interests of average Americans these days. And if we want to change Washington, to take back Washington, we’ll have to do it, by giving the small parties a fair chance.
—Stone

...and i have to laugh at your Republicrat naivete, barnyarders..firstly, these ‘debates’ about which you work your cheeseburger chutes are worse than phony…rigged,...always have been…

...so perhaps instead of wasting your hot, humid breath on trying to gain your republicreep bard’s inclusion in some stinking phony ‘debate’...trying to peel off a few stoooooooooopid republicrat voters in the process..

...maybe you should PUBLICLY, LOUDLY, AND FREQUENTLY POINT OUT WHAT A STINKING, CONTRIVED, GODDAMNED FRAUD THIS “COMPETITION OF IDEAS ABOUT GOVERNMENT” (political elections, campaigns, debates, polls, etceterot..) IS..trying to entice some of the MILLIONS of thoughtful americans who don’t vote, etc. now because, well,...thoughful, decent, people don’t support, affirm/’vote for’ mealy-mouthed, stoooooooooooooopid, fucking republicrats!.. ;o)

BTW…!!OF COURSE THE PARTICIPANTS IN ‘THE COMPETITION’ SHOULD COMPETE/DEBATE FREQUENTLY, HEAD-TO-HEAD, etc. WITH NO STNKING ‘MODERATORS’ (only time-keepers) TRYING TO CONTROL THE DIALOGUE, OUTCOME..(but it seems some stooooooopid fucks are left begging themselves into yet another stinking republicrat farce instead of exposing it, exposing the fucks who feed us this shit, etc.!)

(but then again, what can you expect out of republicrat numbskulls whose lives revolve around the acqui$ition of ‘$ome-thing’ about which the origin, nature, etc. remains worse than a mere mystery while the antics of britney spears, the latest republicrat polls, etc. crap ad nauseam, are thoroughly understood/revealed!..) ;o)

..oooooooga boooooooooga, republicrats!..

They need to lower it to being on enough ballots to potentially win, otherwise they aren’t posing a real fix. 5% is just as arbitrary as 15%, and just as ripe for abuse. Baldwin and McKinney probably won’t even be included in polls. OpenDebates’s “open debates” would have excluded every LP candidate so far, despite having nationwide ballot placement for the past however many election cycles. They would have excluded pretty much every other third party candidate of the past 30 years too. The only practical change their standards would have resulted in would have been including Perot in ‘96 and possibly Nader in ‘00. Not good enough.

If things were as most believe, (no controlled media, and no controlled B.O. and McSame) why wouldn’t B.O. debate Barr and/or Baldwin and ENSURE his victory ? Reagan did it with Anderson, who pulled liberal support from some Kennedy primary voters.

Or, this is even better, why doesn’t McSame debate McKinney and Nader ? ENSURING his victory. No ! It’s a rigged game people !

The most powerful people in the world met today in a hotel in VA ! To decide YOUR future fate ! What? Yes, they will decide how HIGH gas goes, how many will starve from food shortages, will Iran be invaded, WHO will be your next VP, and a few more things we will all suffer through. Didn’t you see it covered on the nightly news? On your favorite cable news show? No? It wasn’t worth covering ! Or, was it not allowed to be covered?

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2008/040608_b_Coast.htm

The worst thing about remaining a mushroom all your life ?
You are fed the same thing, morning, noon and night…