It’s good to see that both the McCain & Obama campaign appear to have turned down ABC’s offer to host the presidential debates. The ABC debate between Hillary Clinton & Barack Obama was generally perceived to have touched the nadir of political discourse.
In June of 2006, while I was still on board at DailyKos, I posted a diary examining the “ownership” of the debates, from the League of Women voters, who returned the debate forum to presidential politics, to the CPD, owners since 1988, who succeeded in returning the debate format to lawyered-up mutual marketing fests.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
To hopefully whet your appetite for reading the link:
At any rate, the diary I thought of writing was “How did the Women’s League of Voters get kicked out of the debate sponsorship?” Because it was that very organization who brought back the debate to US politics.
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In 1988 the WLV backed out with this statement:
“The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates … because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates’ organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.”
and
“The major parties, however, did not want a sponsor that limited their candidates’ control. Consequently, in 1986, the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee ratified an agreement between Fahrenkopf and Kirk “for the parties to take over presidential debates.” In 1987, Fahrenkopf and Kirk incorporated the CPD, and for the next 18 months, they served as co-chairmen of their parties and co-chairmen of the CPD simultaneously. Though it has been 18 years, Fahrenkopf and Kirk still co-chair the CPD. (my bold) In addition to their partisan ties, many board members of the CPD have close ties to multinational corporations; Frank Fahrenkopf is the nation’s leading gambling industry lobbyist, and Paul Kirk lobbies for pharmaceutical companies. Not surprisingly, the debates are now primarily funded through tax-deductible corporate contributions, and debate sites have become corporate carnivals, where sponsoring companies market their products and propaganda to influential journalists and politicians.
In essence, I thought it would be important to return the debates to The Women’s League of voters sponsorship. And I could kick myself for not doing everything I could to promote this idea, because it appears the CPD with the same culprits, Fahrenkopf & Kirk, already have the 2008 minimally plotted out:
http://www.debates.org/pages/n...
For whatever else it was, the past primary season evinced a rebellion against inevitability. The sense that HClinton was pre-crowned for the Democratic Party, and that McCain was the first to be on the ropes for the Republican Party.
You will note that the CPD has assented to blog inclusion. Will the included bloggers be the “usual suspects?” The Big Box Blogs are also compromised with their history of either shutting down dissent or mutually reinforcing their status by their listing of”approved” sites.
As I have noted in other things I have written, we never get to vote the talking heads out of office. And it is an unfortunate fact that most voters will be getting their information from those mass media, and mass media wannabe sources.
After I close this, I will send a link to this diary to:
-The Womens League of Voters (in my area, or if I can find a national board.
-The Obama campaign
-The McCain Campaign
-Any blog I’m still “allowed” to post on.
