6
Missing this election: Third-party presidential candidates
President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speak at different campaign events in this photo illlustration.
To view this content, Javascript must be enabled and Adobe Flash Player must be installed.
The first presidential debate of this election cycle will be held in Denver next week. President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney will cover a host of domestic issues -- from health care to the economy. Jim Lehrer of PBS NewsHour will moderate.
Here's a short list of who you won't see on stage: Gary Johnson, Jill Stein or Virgil Goode, the most prominent third-party candidates this election cycle.
And as it turns out, our friends at Gallup help decide who's in and who's out of the debates. One criteria for a candidate to get an invite: score an average of 15 percent on five national polls. Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport is the one who looks at the polls and reports back to the Commission on Presidential Debates.
The last third-party candidate who qualified by Gallup's measures was Ross Perot in 1992. Perot went on to win 19 percent of the popular vote in his race against then Gov. Bill Clinton and then President George H.W. Bush. Perot's campaign focused largely on economic issues. At that time, the bad economy was a focus of Perot's campaign. He emphasized the high federal deficit and debt, according to Newport.
Plus, "here's an economic element to that race for you -- he had a billion dollars! And was able to spend about $100 million of it on his own race," said Newport.
Just as in 1992, the bad economy is a focus of this election cycle. But that hasn't been enough to challenge the current system.
"There's not a groundswell for third-party candidates this year," said Newport. In a Gallup poll that named Johnson, Stein and Goode alongside Romney and Obama, the third-party candidates each scored close to 1 percent.
One challenger who could have potentially had a Perot-sized impact: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Mr. Ryssdal,
You have been bamboozled by Mr. Frank Newport's description of the debates. His organizations information is used to qualify the debate invitees only using the criteria established by the Commission on Presidential Debates.
Of course he forgot to mention that the CPD is wholly controlled by the Demo/Repub parties and was created by a partnership of those two entities. He also forgot to mention that the criteria for Perot's inclusion (5% or more of popular polls) was conveniently changed to 15% or more of popular polls after Perot's run in order to limit future alternative party candidates from participation in the debates. It almost sounded like Mr. Newport was grinning from the side of his face as he stated the "facts" about 3rd or alternative party candidates in-ability to get invited to the debates.
As it is the debates have become a sham with talking head moderators since both parties agree on and vet all logistics and questions prior to the debates. In essence the debates have become INFOMERCIALS for both D/R parties supported by heavy corporate sponsorships.
For shame do you allow this misinformation to be continued. This actually should be require a clarification if not complete retraction of the story contents.
This also continues the vicious cycle of the alternative parties being pushed aside since they don't get enough public support. They don't get enought support since the parties don't get enough coverage since they don't get enough public support e.t.c. and so on... The info-tainment media do not want to cover alternative parties due to the above and not being able to "package" the story easy enough. Remember how that media got bound up when then Senator Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton were both trying to run for the presidential nomination. Since the info-tainment / drive-by media journalism manufacturers could not compute the issue in their brains, they could not actually report it to the public. Same follows for alternative political parties as most journalists today do not even know about alternative parties nor of how the debates were held prior to the evil clutches of the Corporation on Presidential Debates wresting the debates from independent organizations...
Regards,
EC
Southern States, USA
[Perhaps Mr. Newport would be better qualified to comment on why his organization and other polling organizations got the 2000 election so,so wrong with their exit polling...]
I agree with Ben Davis and medellinemil (although medellinemil needs to take it down a notch or two). Third party candidates are caught in a catch twenty two. They aren't covered by the media, so they don't poll well. Since they don't poll well, they aren't invited to debates and aren't covered by the media, and the cycle continues. The commission on presidential debates is a fraud meant to keep the Democrats and Republicans as the only "viable" options for voters. I wish Marketplace would have done a more thorough job with this story. I challenge Marketplace to have Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson, Gary Johnson, and Virgil Goode on the program to discuss their policies and platforms.
First off, I LOVE marketplace. I listen as often as I can and I find that I agree with, or at least appreciate the approach to, almost all of the news stories done by this show.
That said, I agree with "medellinemil" albeit not with his/her somewhat rude tone. You discussed the polling and the minimum requirement to be included in the debates and laughed about how Ross Perot was the last viable 3rd party candidate but only because he had enough money to purchase awareness of his campaign. Don't you think it important to note that ONLY candidates who are independently wealthy have the ability to be a viable third party candidate? Perhaps a little bit of history would have been appropriate. For example, the Commission on Presidential Debates was formed by the Democratic and Republican parties after the League of Women Voters withdrew from controlling the debates because the parties were "trying to steal the debates from the American voters" and the founder of the CPD intentionally set the rules to exclude third parties. http://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/19/us/democrats-and-republicans-form-pane...
In a recent Princeton Survey Research International poll that included Gary Johnson, >60% of people said they didn't know enough about him to have an informed position. In that same poll, 6% of likely voters said they would vote for him. http://reason.com/assets/db/13481953038600.pdf Clearly there is some discrepancy between those numbers and the < 1% your guest quoted on the show. Furthermore, how exactly is a third party candidate supposed to obtain 15% of polling when they aren't even given the opportunity to present their stance unless they are independently wealthy? How is it even remotely in the democratic spirit of fairness to exclude third party candidates from debates, simply because they did not obtain sufficient polling numbers (ironically, the piece immediately before this spent a few minutes addressing the errors inherent in polling) and in spite of them being listed on the ballot in most or even all of the states?
This final note: I live in the I-4 corridor in Florida, one of the key battleground areas in the country. I have been called for 3 polls this election cycle. Not one of them has listed the third party candidates by name. One of them didn't even give any options beyond Obama, Romney or undecided. Yet, somehow, a third party candidate is supposed to poll at 15% when EVEN THE POLLS don't provide their names.
PLEASE readdress this issue. The American people deserve the truth and where else can they turn to get it but American Public Media?!?!
Perhaps inadvertently, you stumbled on a primary reason why I predict we don't see a viable third-party candidate this round but why we might in the near future: money.
This cycle, PWM's (people with money) are so hell-bent and determined to unseat Obama that they're pouring their money into defeating him no matter what. The vehicle for that goal is Romney, but they have quickly grown disenchanted with this white horse candidate.
In future, they might not be so ready to fund a 'presumptive nominee' and, should a good darkhorse alternate appear, (there were none of those, this year) you can bet the flow of funds will find a new course.
Should the Republican party continue to be pulled to the nutty extreme by ultra-religious conservatives and teaparty zealots, a third party candidate might easily out-distance a GOP nominee and we'll see the party go down in Whig-like infamy.
Come on guys. You could at least invite all the candidates with a mathematical chance to win the electoral college onto the stage. What you're going is not nice, and might be bad for the voters. You're certainly not encouraging choice.
Marketplace could do voters a favor and talk to the folks at Free and Equal. Their debates are more inclusive.
Hey Frank (Newport) & Kai (Ryssdal) - you two SUCK & did a piss poor job on the "Missing this election: Third-party presidential candidates" story. Here's why: The Commission on Presidential Debates is a PRIVATE CORPORATION run by THE TOP American Gaming Association (Casino) lobbyist in the nation - Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr. - and his buddy - Paul G. Kirk Jr. - a former big pharm. lobbyist! If this doesn't sound crazy enough, Frank & Paul were the RNC & DNC chairmen, respectively. Think for a second. Why are HIGHLY BIpartisan REPUBLICAN & DEMOCRAT national CHAIRMEN deciding what polling % of the American population is required for participation in the 'NONpartisan' Presidential debates. The worst of it is you two: you side-stepped the ACTUAL story. The media DOSEN'T cover these alternative (Stein / Goode / Johnson / Rocky Anderson) candidates. It's a cleverly devised catch-22. If you NEVER - or, next to never - cover them, the alternative candidates won't read on the polls and they'll never get to debate in prime time and hence will never be heard of. And cause they're never heard of, they'll never poll well.It's a positive (self-fufilling) feedback loop where everyone shrugs and says well, "I guess Americans just don't care.". HORSESH*T! You guys SELECTIVELY CHOOSE who & what to cover and hence the public at large is stuck with who & what we've got! Eat it!
Run the ACTUAL story (see George Farah at Open Debates) & remember the last non-Democrat/non-Republican President this country had was in 1853 - Democracy my a**!
