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She got on the ballot; shouldn't that be enough?
By adamg on Sun, 09/12/2010 - 8:34am
Apparently, Mainstream Media doesn't find Jill Stein to be Worthy. Dan Kennedy: That raises a question: What are debates for?
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Comments
Debate Qualification
I am not voting for Jill Stein. But I wonder why the media won't allow her to participate in the debate. How can a candidate like her get her message out? I think the Green Party is on it's way (someday)to being a viable entity. If the media restricts access to debates, how does a party that isn't the Democratic or Republican Parties get their views out there? In time maybe the Internet will be the catalyst for this.
I think the Green Party is on
Yeah, and Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek will be mud-wrestling for the honor of doing my dishes real soon.
Green Party is a Republican- and Democrat-supported scam
To marginalize those who might have far-left views on the fringes. Same thing as when Republicans anonynously threw efforts behind getting Nader on ballots on 2000 and 2004. By creating something that's so way, way off the margins it keeps views out of the mainstream. Works pretty well, actually.
Two-party system won't die
That's why.
We all (myself included, much of the time) don't trust others enough to stray away from the two-party system, so we have a paradigm where voting for anyone other than the D or the R is "throwing away your vote."
Remember the 2002 gubernatorial race? We had a career politician with a pretty ineffective track record, a rich homophobe who didn't actually live here and had no experience as a political leader, and a doctor and educator who had made a career developing and running successful community health and social service centers on tight budgets. Oh, and we can't forget the last two -- someone whose whole platform was being opposed to taxes and someone who talked about "the gay lifestyle" and called mental health providers members of "so-called professions."
I thought it was pretty freakin' obvious which one of these candidates had demonstrated that she knew how to run an organization and make sure everyone's interests were considered and make sure everyone was taken care of. Yet it was considered a huge accomplishment that she got 3.5% of the vote.
The only way to kill the two-party system is to disallow any party affiliation and make people vote on the way candidates answer the questions and the way they've proven themselves in the past.
And yes, freakin' MSM
I became somewhat of a zealot during that election, when I'd hear crap like Kiss 108 telling people to "call in right now and tell us who you're voting for -- press 1 for Romney and 2 for O'Brien." I called the host and told him that there were five candidates on the ballot, plus a write-in option. He flat-out told me that no one cares.
Keep in mind that the people who AREN'T critical thinkers and don't inform themselves through multiple sources are the ones who get their information solely from sources like Kiss 108. It's more important for activists to pay attention to this sort of thing and work to change it than it is to nitpick the more highbrow information sources.
As One Who Voted For The Anti-Tax Person...
... I couldn't agree more with your overall assessment of the situation.
I could go on for many hundreds of paragraphs, pointing out hideous unfair practices, from when I was a Libertarian candidate for state rep, or when I was state chair of that party, or from when I was a campaign manager for other candidates, but the sad fact is that the media will almost always take the easiest stories and run with them, validating their lack of work via the 'nobody really cares about that candidate' tack. Of course, the usual reason 'nobody really cares about that candidate' is because that candidate has been systematically excluded from most major sources of free publicity which the media lavishes upon the other candidates.
If you or anyone else would really like to hear me rant, here's where I did a few years ago...
Two Rants
(TWO rants? Yes. As a bonus, you get me going on about Christmas coming too early.)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
(I suspect this screed will make some of you want to take back your well-wishes concerning me quitting smoking. I apologize in advance.)
two party system is best
It's easier to make a decision either/or. That's why the two party system has survived.
As for Jill, she talks Populist but acts Communist, and that's why she's nowhere.
Really?
Better, apriori, because it is simpler? That's it? Ease of decision-making is your sole metric for quality of governance?
Now, please, flesh this out a bit here: please explore the ways that our two-party system is better and worse than multi-party systems in other countries. Some critical thinking and comparative analysis would make your statement a little more persuasive.
BTW: "populist" and "communist" are not mutually exclusive.
two parties
It makes it much easier for the electorate to send a clear message to the government about what it wants. Second it limits the power of small fringe parties to hold the government hostage.
Jill is right that corporate giveaways are a problem, but where she goes from there is wrong. We have so many corporate tax breaks because the corporate income tax rate is way too high. The solution is to lower the overall rate.
Instead Jill says tax everybody at the high rate, wipe out a bunch of jobs, and put the money into a state government that reached its level of effective size a long time ago, and is now using all new money to find new places to occupy itself.
I have tried to communicate this to her, but the truth is she is just a really really liberal Democrat losing to a moderate Democrat. Boo hoo.
speaking of small fringe
speaking of small fringe parties holding the government hostage....
I agree
The problem with a system that is full of loopholes is that it skews in favor of the company with the cleverest tax lawyers. When you end up with some small businesses paying 39% marginal and many large businesses paying no taxes whatsoever, you have a de facto government redistribution of wealth upwards, from the small companies to the big, and that's where we are now. Complexity invites corruption. Bring this out in the light of day and simplify it and we could not only improve revenue but also allow the efficiency of the market to improve.
However, I also have a pet peeve about people claiming to "reduce taxes" when the country is running a deficit. If you pile a tax cut on the national credit card, you're not reducing taxes at all, but increasing them, because it will cost us more to pay that back in the long run. The net result, once again, is wealth redistribution upwards, from the populace to the big banks in the form of interest payments.
It is a great thing that the loopholes that companies like Exxon and GE take advantage of are so huge that the corporate tax rate structure could be significantly lowered without adding to the deficit at all, but it is also true that our politicians lack the stones to defy their biggest contributors. One hand washes the other, and sooner or later you end up in full-blown crony capitalism.
Oh, come on now!
They think she's worthy. A little TOO worthy, if you know what I mean! The first televised debate said it all. She threw out grenade after grenade that explodes their bipartisan, private-profit-driven consensus. All 3 Beacon Hill insiders are about making Massachusetts better for business. All the while we've been taking THE PEOPLE's tax money and giving it away to corporate entitlement programs. All of a sudden to have this uppity woman talking about using THE PEOPLE's tax money to make Massachusetts better for THE PEOPLE... that's just moonbat fringe fat lesbian crazy talk!
Bloggy silence on the matter
Blue Mass Group doesn't have an opinion on this? Red Mass Group? No? Hard to believe...
The consortium consists of the Globe, WCVB, WHDH, NECN, WGBH and WBUR. Email time.
Why the two-party system persists
I'm all for letting Jill Stein participate. But there's a reason we have a two-party system, and it's not laziness or ill-informed voters. It's the winner-take-all system. Unless we try reforms like instant runoff and proportional representation, nearly all elections will continue to be won by Democrats and Republicans.
I'd Argue It's A Bit Of What I Say, A Bit Of What You Say
Dan:
As media types go, you're one of the good ones. You aren't lazy, and you're willing to at least listen to all sides of an argument before reaching a conclusion.
I've dealt with others, however, who didn't share your sense of fairness. While working as a campaign manager, and attempting to secure spots in debates, or even get a modicum of press coverage, for various Libertarian candidates, I've dealt with more than anyone's fair share of belligerent types who were openly hostile to any attempt to change the system or introduce a third (or fourth, or fifth) variable. And I'm convinced the hostility was not ideologically based, but just a plain unwillingness to expend energy outside of the usual amounts needed in covering a simple two-way race. Certainly, that's a subjective opinion on my part, and perhaps one informed via disappointment, but that's the way I saw it. There's little else in way of conclusion to come to when one is hung up on upon the announcement of one's name and affiliation with a certain candidate, or when one has letters to editorial boards go completely unanswered, and when one has the mere mention of a candidate's having made the ballot not happen in supposedly non-partisan voter's guides published by leading newspapers.
Having said that, things like proportional representation and instant runoff elections would certainly help to alleviate much of the problem.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Consortium relents, sort of
The media group has done the right thing for the wrong reason, but reserves the right to "reassess... whether Stein qualifies for the second consortium debate, on Oct. 26."