Thursday, October 16, 2008

Norquist Joins Coalition, Calls For Dismantling Debate Commission

Today, Politico's Ben Smith broke some big news:
The bi-partisan group of online activists pushing to liberate debate footage from copyright restriction, and more broadly to remold presidential debates for a new age, says it will involve itself in other debates in the off-years, and gear up for 2012.

The conservative activist Grover Norquist is also joining the group, he said last night.

"I'm happy to join the Open Debate Coalition in calling for dismantling the Commission or fundamentally reforming it so it is accountable to one constituency only: the public," he said in an email. "And, if the Commission wants to show any bit of responsiveness this year, they'll make sure that debate footage is put in the public domain so people can put clips on YouTube and otherwise share key moments without being deemed copyright lawbreakers."
Norquist also tells us: "There is no excuse for the Commission imposing their will on the debates, despite the wishes of both major party candidates and a broad grassroots coalition on the right and left."

If you'd like to join our open debates movement, sign up now in the yellow box on the right of this blog, or at the bottom of this post.

We clearly have big momentum. The Commission on Presidential Debates messed up big-time by completely ignoring the will of the people, and McCain and Obama, when it came to the "open debate principles" our coalition proposed. So now, the Commission must go -- and be replaced by a debate process that's democratic, transparent, and accountable to the people.

After you sign up in the yellow box, if you'd like to urge the Commission to follow Grover Norquist's advice and make sure debate video is put in the public domain, you can email the Commission's Executive Director Janet Brown at: jb@debates.org

Join The Open Debate movement today





Your e-mail



Your title/affiliation (Optional)

2 comments:

BC said...

Sure. Every supporter overall is great.

But the format is more important, and with the exception of Debate III, the format was terrible. Not only was there little follow up, there was little interaction between the ideas.

I would also shut their mikes off...and I mean off...when they go overtime.

And if you had HS or College students asking the questions they will stay more on topic, because it's dangerous to F*#(*$&K around with the BS detectors of young people.

I would ask the National Forensic League to sponsor the debates.

BC

Matthew Cornell said...

Good points. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_debates:

Control of the presidential debates has been a ground of struggle for more than two decades. The role was filled by the nonpartisan League of Women Voters (LWV) civic organization in 1976, 1980 and 1984. In 1987, the LWV withdrew from debate sponsorship, in protest of the major party candidates attempting to dictate nearly every aspect of how the debates were conducted. ... The same year the two major political parties assumed control of organizing presidential debates through the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). The commission has been headed since its inception by former chairs of the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee.

I heard Ralph Nader talk about this, and he really blew my mind.

Thanks again.