A REAL DEBATE WOULD INCLUDE NADER

Call it the "American Principle," a basic tenet shared by baseball,
business and apple-pie bake-offs: Fair, open, healthy competition promotes
excellence.

So why would Americans sit still for presidential debates that are
arbitrarily restricted -- Soviet-style -- to the two parties that control
the Commission on Presidential Debates? Most of us don't, actually. Some
two-thirds of those polled say they want Green Party presidential candidate
Ralph Nader included in this fall's televised debates. They may or may not
decide to vote for Nader, but they at least want to hear what he has to say.

That's the American way. But it's not the Commission on Presidential
Debates way.

The commission, founded by Republican and Democratic party officials and
funded by beer and tobacco corporations, has erected a barrier to keep out
third-party candidates, even candidates of Nader's stature. It's not enough
to have a 35-year record of public advocacy and achievement; to be running
a serious campaign and to have fought your way onto the ballot in almost
every state. It's not enough to be drawing larger campaign crowds than
either Gov. George W. Bush or Vice President Al Gore. In Portland, Ore.,
recently 10,500 people paid $7 each to hear Nader speak.

No, to be heard on our public airwaves, the CPD has decreed that Nader (and
the Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan) would have to be scoring 15
percent in five major polls. Not 15 percent saying they want Nader in the
debates, mind you, but 15 percent saying they'd definitely vote for Nader
today -- before they've even had a chance to hear his views in debates or
other media forums.

This Catch-22 -- you can't get media attention without good poll numbers
and you can't get good poll numbers without media attention -- is
deliberately deployed by the CPD, a fact that raises important questions
for any believer in the democratic process:

. What's the purpose of debates? Another canned campaign event for the Big
Two, like their conventions? Or a wide-ranging, robust discussion of
issues? Two-thirds of Americans vote for real discussion -- and Nader's
inclusion.

. Who elected the CPD to set the rules? Nobody. This private corporation
seized control of the debates after the nonpartisan League of Women Voters
had the audacity to let independent John Anderson debate in 1980. But most
news media are accomplices in the CPD's charade: TV networks could refuse
to carry rigged debates; they could host their own debates or they could
televise fair debates organized by civic, labor or educational groups.
Newspapers could refuse to shut out third-party candidates or stop labeling
them "spoilers," as if major-party candidates were automatically entitled
to anyone's vote.

. Where did the 15 percent rule come from, the thin air of high-level
politics? Precedent and logic call for a different standard, as proposed by
the nonpartisan Citizens' Task Force on Fair Debates and by U.S. Rep. Jesse
Jackson Jr., D-Ill. Jackson's congressional resolution urges the inclusion
of all candidates who score at least 5 percent (the threshold for federal
campaign funding) in national polls or whom more than 50 percent of people
polled want included in the debates.

. Who says third-party candidates have no chance of winning, and therefore
should be excluded? That argument was body-slammed once and for all when
Jesse Ventura, polling below 10 percent before he was allowed to debate,
went on to become governor of Minnesota. So much for "spoilers." Besides,
there are different ways of "winning" an election (or a debate). Consider
that virtually every step forward our society has taken was originally
proposed by a third party: the abolition of slavery, women's right to vote,
the Social Security Administration, a minimum wage, the 40-hour workweek,
pure food and drug laws, worker-protection laws and abolition of child
labor. Nader and the Green Party can "win" in this election if their voices
and their vote totals create a political climate that gives birth to
universal health care, a living wage, fair trade policies with labor and
environmental safeguards and full publicly funded elections that would
eliminate the corrosive effect of big money in politics.

. What price do we pay for exclusionary debates? Millions who might be
energized by fresh ideas instead return to voter coma. With more than half
of all eligible voters sitting out elections, it's instructive to recall
that when Ross Perot was included in the debates in 1992, an average of 90
million people watched; when he was excluded four years later, more than
half of them tuned out again. Besides being dull and boring, debates
limited to Bush and Gore would mean no serious discussion of important
issues the two basically agree on: World Trade Organization/North American
Free Trade Agreement/World Bank, trade with China, continuation of the
death penalty, corporate welfare, military spending and the drug war. The
only candidate who refuses corporate contributions (Nader) would not be
there to talk about real campaign-finance reform. Central issues of Nader's
campaign, and of many people's lives, would get short shrift: universal
health care, environmental and economic justice, the concentration of
corporate power over governmental and private decisions.

A living democracy depends on informed voters. When voters are denied a
chance to see which candidates represent their interests, democracy is
subverted, and we all pay. That includes those voters already committed to
Bush or Gore, whose deeper commitment must be to fair play and democracy.

. What recourse do we have? We have the power of citizens. We can demand
change, and work for it. We can challenge the news media to reject the
CPD's debates and set up their own. We can demand that the CPD end its
lockout of third-party candidates. Those who are polled can say they'll
vote for Nader, just to help him get 15 percent. Some younger people,
feeling excluded, will take to the streets. All of us can vote our
disapproval of the CPD's blend of politics, with the TV remote beginning
Oct. 3 and at the ballot box Nov. 7.

Closed "debates" are part of a corporate-funded headlock on democracy.
Nader is determined to break that headlock. The powers of the CPD want him
gagged. A free and fair people say: Let the man speak and we'll judge for
ourselves.