No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates

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Seven Stories Press, 4.01.2011 г. - 232 страници
Broadcast to tens of millions of Americans, the presidential debates are the Super Bowl of politics. A good performance before the cameras can vault a contender to the front of the pack, while a gaffe spells national embarrassment and can savage a candidacy. The slim margin for error has led the two major parties to seek—and achieve, under the aegis of the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates—tight control through scripting, severe time limits, and the exclusion of third-party candidates. In No Debate, author and lobbyist George Farah argues that these staged recitations make a mockery of free and fair presidential elections.

With urgency and clarity, this book reviews the history of presidential debates, the impact of the debates since the advent of television, the role of the League of Women Voters, the antidemocratic activity of the CPD, and the specific ways that the Republicans and Democrats collude to remove all spontaneity from the debates themselves. The author presents the complete text of a previously unreleased secret document between the Republicans and Democrats that reveals the degree to which the two parties—not the CPD—dictate the terms of the debates. In the final chapter, Farah lays out a compelling strategy for restoring the presidential debates as a nonpartisan, unscripted, public events that help citizens—not corporations or campaign managers—decide who is going to run the White House.
 

Съдържание

Debate Cartel
1
Hostile Takeover
23
Candidate Exclusion
39
Stilted Formats
75
The 15 Percent Fiction
97
Issue Exclusion
125
Failed Restitution
140
Citizens Debate Commission
155
Conclusion
173
1996 Memorandum of Understanding
176
Joint Press Release from the Democratic and Republican National Committees
191
Index
213
About the Author
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Информация за автора (2011)

GEORGE FARAH is the founder and executive director of Open Debates, a Washington-based nonprofit committed to reforming the presidential debate process. He is also a student at Harvard Law School. His articles have appeared in Extra! Magazine and The Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as other publications.

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