[GPRI] George Farah: Corporate Muzzling Of Politics

[John Gallagher]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/22/corporate_muzzling_of_politics.php
 
Corporate Muzzling Of Politics
George Farah 
March 22, 2007

    
George Farah is the author of No Debate: How the
Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the
Presidential Debates and the founder of Open Debates
(www.OpenDebates.org).

The major parties cannot police themselves. For a
decade, the House Ethics Committee, comprised of
Republicans and Democrats, has refused to punish
blatant acts of corruption so that both parties can
continue to rake in corporate contributions.
Similarly, since its inception, the bipartisan Federal
Election Commission has failed to enforce election
laws because the appointed Commissioners rebuff
efforts to investigate members of their own parties.
And unbeknownst to the public, for the last 20 years,
through a private corporation called the Commission on
Presidential Debates, the Republican and Democratic
parties have worked together to ruin our most sacred
political forums in order to protect their candidates
from genuine debate.

Despite its purported commitment to "providing the
best possible information to viewers and listeners,"
the Commission on Presidential Debates exists to
secretly award control of the presidential debates to
the Democratic and Republican candidates.

The commission, which claims to "have no relationship
with any political party or candidate," was actually
created by the Republican and Democratic parties. In
1986, the two parties' national committees ratified an
agreement "to take over the presidential debates."
Fifteen months later, then-Republican Party chair
Frank Fahrenkopf and then-Democratic Party chair Paul
Kirk incorporated the commission, and they have
co-chaired the organization ever since.

Every four years, negotiators for the major party
nominees meet behind closed doors and jointly draft
secret debate contracts called memoranda of
understanding. These contracts dictate precisely how
the debates will be structured—from who gets to
participate, to who will ask the questions, to the
temperature in the auditoriums. The commission merely
implements and conceals the contracts, shielding the
major party candidates from public criticism.

In 1996, for example, Republican nominee Bob Dole and
Democratic nominee Bill Clinton spoiled the
presidential debates before they started. During
debate negotiations, Dole demanded the exclusion of
Reform Party nominee Ross Perot, despite the fact that
Perot had received $29 million in taxpayers' funds for
his campaign and that over three-quarters of eligible
voters wanted him included. Clinton, meanwhile,
desired the smallest possible audience for the
debates—what George Stephanopoulos called a
"nonevent"—because he was comfortably leading in the
polls.

Dole and Clinton struck a deal; Perot would be
excluded, one debate would be canceled, and the
remaining two debates would be deliberately scheduled
opposite the World Series, producing the smallest
audience in presidential debate history.

The American people never knew why a candidate they
wanted to see was excluded, or why the debates were
held on the same night as the World Series. Dole and
Clinton were able to conceal their manipulation of the
debates because of the complicity of the Commission on
Presidential Debates.

Moreover, under the commission's tenure, debate
formats have become stilted and unrevealing. The
Republican and Democratic nominees handpick compliant
moderators, artificially limit response times, require
the screening of town-hall questions, and even
prohibit themselves from talking to each other. The
final product amounts to little more than a series of
glorified bipartisan press conferences.

Walter Cronkite called the commission-sponsored
debates an "unconscionable fraud" and accused the
candidates of "sabotaging the electoral process."
 
To top it off, Anheuser-Busch, US Airways, and other
corporations foot most of the bill for these
candidate-controlled pseudo-debates through
tax-deductible contributions to the commission. Debate
sites have become corporate carnivals, with
Anheuser-Busch girls in skimpy outfits passing out
pamphlets denouncing beer taxes. The corporate
connection is not surprising; Mr. Fahrenkopf is the
nation's leading gambling lobbyist, and Mr. Kirk has
lobbied on behalf of pharmaceutical companies.
 
The presidential debates weren’t always controlled by
the major parties and promoted by business interests.
For three election cycles, the League of Women Voters
nobly served as a nonpartisan debate sponsor that
championed the public interest. In 1980, the league
invited independent candidate John B. Anderson to
participate in a presidential debate, even though
President Jimmy Carter adamantly refused to debate
him.

Four years later, when the Ronald Reagan and Walter
Mondale campaigns vetoed 68 proposed panelists in
order to eliminate difficult questions, the league
held a press conference and lambasted the candidates
for "abusing the process." The ensuing public outcry
persuaded the candidates to accept the league's
selected panelists.

And in 1988, when the George Bush and Michael Dukakis
campaigns drafted the first secret "memorandum of
understanding" that dictated who would participate and
under what conditions, the league declined to
implement it. Instead, the league withdrew its
sponsorship and issued a blistering press release,
claiming that "the demands of the two campaign
organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American
voter."

We need another nonpartisan debate sponsor—a Citizens’
Debate Commission—to retake control of the
presidential debates and follow in the League’s
footsteps. Just as an independent ethics prosecutor is
needed to combat congressional corruption, and just as
an apolitical regulatory agency is needed to enforce
election laws, a genuinely nonpartisan debate sponsor
is needed to ensure that our most important public
forums serve the voters' interests.

 




 
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