On Tuesday, the Grand Rapids Press ran a brief one-paragraph announcement in its “In Brief” section reporting that sites and dates have been chosen for the 2008 presidential debates. According to the article and a press release from the Commission on Presidential Debates, presidential debates will be held at the University of Mississippi on September 26, Belmont University in Tennessee, and Hofstra University in New York. Additionally, a vice presidential debate will be held at Washington University in Missouri.
The Grand Rapids Press–like most newspapers and media outlets that announced the debates–failed to explore the larger question of who sets up the debates. Since 2000, while the Press has run a few articles from wire services and other papers that talk about the debate process, there has been no substantive exploration of the process. Each presidential election year, the debates are setup by an organization called the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) which was formed in 1987. The Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee formed the CPD “to implement joint sponsorship of general election presidential and vice presidential debates” and since forming has hosted all of the presidential debates. Before the 1998 elections, the League of Women Voters organized presidential debates.
While the CPD gives the appearance of being “non-partisan,” it is in reality a bipartisan organization that gives the two major political parties in the United States control over the presidential debates. Many of the key aspects of the debates, from moderators to the participation of third party candidates, are decided behind closed doors by with no transparency. Each year, the two major party candidates agree on secretly negotiated “Memoranda of Understanding” that outline every detail of the debates. These agreements are then given to the CPD who dutifully implements them. This tactic was first used in 1988, when representatives of the Bush and Dukakis campaigns submitted a “Memoranda of Understanding” to the League of Women Voters and the then recently formed Commission on Presidential Debates. The League of Women Voters ultimately withdrew its sponsorship in 1988 because the demands made by the two presidential candidates’ campaigns would have required the League to “help perpetrate a fraud.”
By virtue of it being essentially a vehicle of the Democratic and Republican parties, the CPD has also aided the two major political parties in excluding third party candidates. A 2004 report titled “Deterring Democracy: How the Commission on Presidential Debates Undermines Democracy” shows that the CPD has a history of excluding candidates outside of the two major political parties by either allowing the two major party candidates to decide which–if any–third party candidates are allowed to participate or by setting artificially high thresholds for participation. In 2008, third-party candidates once again will be required to be on enough state ballots to have “a mathematical chance of securing an Electoral College majority” and be polling at least 15% in national polls by five polling organizations. The 15% threshold is difficult for third parties that are often excluded from the media and Presidential Debates Decided; Minor Parties Likely Excluded
