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Politics Government

Networks Ignore 3rd Party Candidates 229

Posted by michael from the business-as-usual dept.
freedomfighter writes "The major media networks have been willfully ignoring alternative voices in this presidential election, focusing only on the two major parties, Democrat and Republican."
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Networks Ignore 3rd Party Candidates More

Networks Ignore 3rd Party Candidates

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  • Amazing! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Hammerikaner ( 570527 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @02:29PM (#10527076) Homepage
    Wow, now that's what I call late-breaking news!

    • Re:Amazing! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Bastian ( 66383 )
      You know what's even crazier?

      President Kennedy has been shot!

  • Coordinated push for "Third Parties?" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by parvenu74 ( 310712 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @02:31PM (#10527096)
    I know that the Greens, the Libertarians, the Natural Law Party, the Constitution Party and others would like to have their voices individually heard and to be covered more in the news, what's the chance that they could collectively make "breaking up the Republican-Democrat duopoly" the #1 goal in their platforms? If they were *all* in agreement on this point I think there would be more notice given to all "third party" candidates.
    • One problem is people are too scared to vote for a third party, fearing it is throwing their vote away. Do I need to remind us of that The Simpsons 1996 Halloween episode?

      Whether or not we decide to keep, alter, or scrap the electoral college, we should try getting Instant Runoff Voting in place. Even if it's to determine the state's (or Congressional District's) popular vote, people wouldn't mind voting for a third party.
      • As Michael Badnarik said, there is nothing better to replace the electoral college unless you want to go to a mob rule, which usually results in collapsing the government in a while.

        Voting your concious is not going to be throwing your vote away. So many people just don't realize it.
        • It is, especially in the presidential election. Lets say we managed to get Nader, Coob, and Badarnik each get 1/5 of the electoral college votes, along with Bush and Kerry. The race would be tied and go to the House of Representatives. Basicly, the entire presidential election wouldn't matter. So long as we have the EC, 3rd party presidential candidates have no chance.
        • But there -are- better ways to use the Electoral College. We have the technology now to transmit vote results faster than by horse, which is a large part of the idea behind sending the delegates to DC to do the true vote.

          In Colorado there is an initiative to make the EC votes from the state be a proportional representation of the votes cast. That way if Bush gets 40% of the vote.

          There are people who claim that this will marginalize Colorado's influence as a swing state. However it also makes it more hone
          • There are people who claim that this will marginalize Colorado's influence as a swing state. However it also makes it more honest. I would much rather see the Dem or Lib ticket get -some- of the votes -all- of the time than see the Reps get ALL of the votes -most- of the time. The more states that do this the more honest representation we get of the true voice of the people. Besides, seeing fewer political ads won't upset me at all :)

            Yes it will make Colerado less important than any other state in the uni

        • Wasn't it Thomas Jefferson who advised that we have a new revolution every 20 years or so- just to keep the government on it's toes?
        • As Michael Badnarik said, there is nothing better to replace the electoral college unless you want to go to a mob rule, which usually results in collapsing the government in a while.

          Really? There are a number of countries in the world who vote Democratically for their President (1 person 1 vote, biggest vote wins). How many of those democracies have collapsed?

      • IRV is BROKEN (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ChristTrekker ( 91442 )

        Oh please for the love of Pete, NO! [livejournal.com] I've said this many times on \. already too, but this is LJ post is the only recent one I can find. IRV is a provably flawed system, please stop advocating it! Pushing for voting reform is great, but we need Condorcet [electionmethods.org] voting [eskimo.com], not IRV.

        And BTW, we need to keep the EC.

        • Screw both of them; approval voting is the way to go.

          Approval voting being, you mark ALL the candidates you would be satisfied with as your leader. Whoever gets the most wins, but you don't have to select one and only one potential leader. Just earmark anyone you'd like to see win.
          • Say you prefer Nader to Gore to Bush. Do you vote approval for Nader (thus "throwing your vote away" if Gore and Bush are the leading candidates) or do you vote approval for Nader and Gore (thus "throwing your vote away" if Nader and Gore are the leading candidates)?

            Yeah, it's better than plurality, but wouldn't it be nice to vote using a system where you can actually express all your preferences in the voting booth rather than having to pick and choose?
            • it's not throwing your vote away if you can express support for a party without sacrificing anything.

              If nader got support of 25% of people but didn't win, that would still be extremely powerful as an indicator of what it is that the people want. If more people are happy with gore than are with nader or bush, then gore should win. I don't see any "throwing votes away" here.
              • If you vote approval for Nader, disapproval for Gore and Bush, then your vote has no effect on the election between Gore and Bush, despite the fact that you have a preference for Gore. If you vote approval for Nader and Gore, disapproval for Bush, then your vote has no effect on the election between Nader and Gore, despite the fact that you have a preference for Gore. Either way, you're throwing away part of your vote. You're not forced to throw away as much as with a plurality system, but you're still u
          • Approval voting doesn't give a way of indicating preference. If I have a choice between A, my favorite, C, who I dispise or B who I don't particularly like, what do I do, especially if the three way race is so close that any might win? Clearly, I'd vote for A and not for C, but B is a toughy. Remember, I prefer A, if I vote for both A and B, B has a better chance of beating A. But, if I vote only for A, C might win by a narrow margin over B.

            This is too similar to the process I must go through now of v

      • For those who don't remember, The Simpsons 1996 Halloween episode went sort of like this:

        Treehouse of Horror VII (1996) The Halloween episode features my favorite Kang and Kodos story, in which our slobbering one-eyed aliens morph into Bob Dole and Bill Clinton. Golden moment: "I suppose you want to probe me," says Homer, on board the flying saucer. "Well, you might as well get it over with." Kang, raising a tentacle: "Stop! We have reached the limit of what rectal probing can teach us!"

        http://www.snpp. [snpp.com]

    • Voter's Contract With America

      Our country is founded upon the principles of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
      These goals are achievable only if we the people desire them to be so.

      I hereby swear that I will vote for those people who promise to approve a balanced budget only.
      I hereby swear that I will place the interests of the citizen, above that of the government.
      I hereby demand unbiased and equal coverage of all candidates for political office who:
      A) Support a balanced budget
      B) Support Civil Li
    • I know that the Greens, the Libertarians, the Natural Law Party, the Constitution Party and others would like to have their voices individually heard and to be covered more in the news, what's the chance that they could collectively make "breaking up the Republican-Democrat duopoly" the #1 goal in their platforms? If they were *all* in agreement on this point I think there would be more notice given to all "third party" candidates.

      That would be great if they could all adopt the same #1 plank. But, what

  • this is new news how? sadly, us nerds and geeks are probably the only people who already realized this, so /. is just preaching to the quire here... :\

    the following is an excerpt of what i posted in a recent rant [forgottennewbies.com]:

    Sadly, in the case of the presidential election this year, (or the farce that was the California gubernatorial recall last year) only the Democans (the republicans and democrats are the same thing) get their names known to the United States public. The system is so royally fucked up, that I can'
  • There is no such thing as the democrat party. There's a *Democratic* party.

    But I guess if you're going to vote Reformer party or yellow party or librarian party or constutional party you wouldn't care.

  • Change the Electoral College (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kawika ( 87069 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @03:44PM (#10527893)
    In the past two elections, we've seen the effect of having states use a "winner take all" approach. The candidates wear out the highways in the swing states like Ohio but completely ignore states where they either have a lock or know they have absolutely no chance.

    If states went to making their electors proportional to the popular vote in the state, all states would be "in play" and candidates couldn't take any state for granted. This is something each state can do without federal approval or interference. Colorado has a referendum to do this in November. Maine and Nebraska already do.

    Here's where third party candidates come in. Lets say that you get a situation where it's nearly split between two candidates, with a small number of electoral votes to candidates like Nader and Badnarik. Those electors are not committed by law to their candidates (barring state law that says otherwise), and could swing to one of the likely victors in return for various concessions such as policy changes.

    This would have the potential to eliminate the headlock the two major parties have on the process. Now every person's vote could have a lot more weight, even a Republican in New York or a Democrat in Wyoming. Voting for a third party candidate wouldn't be "throwing away your vote" because they could bargain with the major candidates to get concessions.

    BTW, good info on the Electoral College and reforms [fairvote.org].

    • The problem is that to change the current situations, the swing states have to change the way they cast their electoral votes. That's completely up to the states. If you were the governor of, let's say, Florida. Would you really want to push for a change that puts your state away from the spotlight? It might be for the greater good of the US, but the people that would lose the most out of the change are the ones that can make the decision. In the same way, republicans and democrats are the ones stopping ins

      • That's completely up to the states.

        It doesn't have to be. A Constitutional Amendment could change it. True, that's unlikely to happen, but it's more plausible than states doing the change on their own.

        As the prohibition amendment shows, you can sometimes convince the nation to pass an amendment that the individual people don't actually want to obey themselves, if they think it's for the betterment of everyone else.
    • Colorado has a ballot initiative to do just this. If it passes Colorado would move from being a crucial, much courted, swing state to largely irrelevant. It would almost inevitably ending going 5 votes for one candidate and 4 for another. It would take a huge shift in votes to get to 6-3. No candidate is going to waste a second of their time or a dollar of advertising money to swing 1 electoral.

      The people pushing it were trying to neutralize a Bush/Republican stronghold. Ironically since then Colorado

  • BBC 1 US Media 0 (Score:5, Informative)

    by isotope23 ( 210590 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @03:54PM (#10528042) Homepage Journal
    The BBC is the only major news outlet to cover the fact [bbc.co.uk] that:

    A) two presidential candidates were arrested in St Louis.

    B) there was a lawsuit which could have stopped the final "debate".

    Isn't it strange that CNN has ZERO [cnn.com] information on a presidential candidate on the ballot in 48 states and D.C.? If this happened in another [cnn.com] country [cnn.com] wouldn't we have heard [cnn.com] about [cnn.com] it? [cnn.com] When added to reports [registerguard.com] that FOX is censoring guests, it leads one to ask: Is this a democracy or a puppet show [jibjab.com]?

    • What you can do.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by isotope23 ( 210590 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @04:19PM (#10528399) Homepage Journal
      Even if you disagree with the 3rd party platforms, shouldn't the public be offered the information so they can choose for themselves?

      If you think this is unfair I urge you to call James Walton, CNN President: ph 404-827-1500
      And let them know you would like to see someone other than Corporate backed candidates.

      While you're at it, call these CNN advertisers. Tell them you will boycott their products unless CNN provides fair coverage. Also Mention that the BBC has covered us while CNN has not. Here is the phone list :

      The Citigroup Bank (1-212) 559-9124
      Exxon 713 656 4376
      Jaguar 1-800-4-JAGUAR
      Staples 1-800-3STAPLE
      AT&T 1 (908) 234-8754
      Walmart 1-800-WAL-MART
      suzuki 800-934-0934
      OxiClean 1-800-781-7529
      GlaxoSmithKline 1 888 825 5249
      Cadillac 1-800-333-4CAD /
      ameritrade 800-454-9272
      ups 1-800-PICK-UPS
      quick-step +32(0)56 67.52.11
      Principal Financial 1.800.986.3343
      Jeep/chrysler 1-800-992-1997
      administaff 800-465-3800
      Visa 1(800) 847-2911
      • You're on drugs if you think the media is going to cover any candidate who is in single digits in the polls. Well they do cover them but only as "spoilers" to one or the other major party candidate. Its important they paint them as crackpots and in fact "spoiling" Democracy by having the audacity to run against the two all powerful parties.

        The media's job isn't to present American people with new ideas and fresh ways to look at things. They are there to run a horse race between the two major candidates,
    • They mentioned the arrests on NBC... here at the local channel in St. Louis anyway. Along with a whopping 5 or so seconds of footage showing police in riot gear and what not. The story was given less than a minute of air time after the debates. Then they switched to the post-debate rallies.
  • The networks are ignoring the 3rd party candidates because the voters are too.

  • Can't have more than 2 (Score:3, Informative)

    by Edax Rarem ( 187218 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @04:39PM (#10528642) Homepage Journal
    Any more than that will confound the entire state of Florida.
  • america has always had this sort of policy

    unless big business is going to support a third party it aint gonna happen

    oh wait

    ross perot
  • Canada has many political parties. But the only parties that were covered by the mainstream media were the Liberals, the Conservative party, The Bloc Quebecois, and the NDP. There were certaintly other parties on our Ballots though. Two communist parties, the Green party, and a handfull of others.

    The reason that the mass media does not cover the US 3rd parties or Canadian communist parties, is ratings. Not enough people vote for those parties to make an impact in an election. And as a corollary, citiz
    • Let's be frank. Four candidates in the debate was a gong show. Throw in the Marijuana Party, the Rhino Party, the Communist Party, and the Greens, and really, how much coverage are you going to get? Two hours and you get to hear very little.

      I suggest we break it into two debates: the debate everyone cares about and the debate for the crap no one's interested in. That's fair :)

  • Hey! This is a perfect chance for us Slashdotters to upset the balance!

    Now which 3rd party candidate should we all vote for?

  • They are afraid of "issue" memes, too (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cryofan ( 194126 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @08:24PM (#10530670) Journal
    Most slashdotters and Libertarians seem to think that the main reason for the shut out is that the Dems and GOP don't want competition. But the reasons go deeper than. One big reason is that the main players/donors do not want certain ideas being put out there in the public airwaves.

    The USA is really run like a livestock ranch, or a slave plantation, in ways. Or, like a business, if you will. One entire set of ideas that are NEVER exposed to the light of day are the whole set of ideas that form the backbone of European and Canadian and Australian governments--that income taxes and business taxes may be used for social safety net things like paying ANY citizen money for rent, food, medical care, etc. That idea is TABOO on the American airwaves. And if the Leftist candidates (Nader or Green Party (Cobb) get on the air, that idea will be directly and bluntly introduced. TABOO on the ranch/plantation!

    Also, the Libertarian party has some ideas that are dangerous ideas, like legalization of marijuana, which is a non-addictive drug that makes people introspective and thoughtful. It often makes young people think that there may be more to life than competing in the rat race. VERY dangerous idea to those who reap huge profits from the machine that is America
  • I'm the candidate of the California Seccessionist Party (Our motto: the Rockies are there for a reason!) and I'm sadened to report that my party has been totally ignored this year! It's the end of democracy!
  • It's kind of like the way that politics.slashdot.org ignores any thing that isn't anti bush?

  • So here's my predictions... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi@CURIE ... minus physicist> on Friday October 15, 2004 @03:42AM (#10533062) Journal
    1. Terrorist attack on US soil - Oklahoma City style/size, pre-elections.
    2. Vote Fraud that makes Florida look like a day in kindergarden.
    3. Riots immediately following the election results because...
    4. Bush wins (due to 1 and 2).

    Assuming I'm right, vote for your favorite 3rd party candidate.
    Assuming I'm wrong, vote for your favorite 3rd party candidate.

    I think it's pretty sad that freedom, justice, honesty, and hope have taken a more-or-less permanent vacation from this country. I didn't even want to post this, because of stupid fear of reprisal. But, what the hell. I hear the weather is nice in Gitmo.

    I hope I'm wrong on all counts, but even a tree knows which way the wind blows.

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