CLOSED TO DEBATE

The Ledger
Editorial
Thursday, September 30, 2004

Tonight's first presidential debate is governed by a 32page "memorandum of understanding." It is more-detailed in demands than the last contract between The Lakeland Center and a visiting pop star.

Walking around a podium (50 inches high on the front side, 48 inches on the side facing the candidate) is not permitted. No props will be used. The podiums will not have hidden risers to compensate for the difference in height of the candidates (President George W. Bush is 5-feet-11; Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., 6-feet-4), and shall be 10 feet apart measuring from "the left-right center" of one podium to "the left-right center of the other."

Even the audience has been sanitized: "The debate will take place before a live audience of between 100 and 150 persons who . . . describe themselves as likely voters who are soft Bush supporters or soft Kerry supporters." They will, the memorandum specifies, "observe in silence."

The memorandum bans television cameras from panning the audience and prohibits camera operators from capturing reactions of one candidate while another speaks.

This is what passes for political debate in America. It's hardly surprising that the debates have turned into scripted sessions orchestrated by the two major political parties.

From 1976 to 1984, the League of Women voters ran the debates. When the Federal Communications Commission ruled that debates did not fall under the equaltime rule if they were sponsored by an independent third party rather than one of the networks, the league had quickly volunteered to initiate the debates in 1976.

In 1988, after candidates George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis refused to renegotiate their debate format, the league withdrew its sponsorship. The league's board issued a statement saying "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."

The debates were taken over the by Commission on Presidential Debates. It is co-chaired by Frank Fahrenkopf, former chairman of the Republican Party and now a lobbyist in Washington for the nation's gambling interests, and by Paul G. Kirk Jr., a former chairman of the Democratic Party and also a lobbyist, most recently for a German pharmaceutical company.

Critics of the CPD point out most board members of the CPD are connected to large multinational corporations. Five of seven are partners of corporate law firms. The CPD's directors serve on the boards of more than 30 corporations.

Nancy Neuman, former president of the League of Women Voters, said that is one reason that the commission has little problem raising money, while the league struggled with it. "Even though I would go to some corporations, I would be lucky to get $5,000. Why? Because under the commission's sponsorship, this is another soft-money deal. It is a way to show your support for the parties because, of course, it is a bipartisan commission and a bipartisan contribution. There was nothing in it for corporations when they made a contribution to the league. Not a quid pro quo. That's not the case with the commission."

Given the cut-and-dried format, it's not surprising that, while the number of voters has continued to grow over the decades, the numbers watching the debates have shrunk.

The television audience averaged 66.2 million in 1984, the year of the Reagan landslide and the last debate the League of Women Voters sponsored. Four years later, the average dropped to 59.7 million. By 2000, it was down to 40.6 million.

In an effort to return to the league's format of allowing the sponsoring organization, rather than the candidates, to control the debate, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization has been formed. Open Debates (www.opendebates.

org) has a board of national civic leaders that wants to educate voters and run the debates for the benefit of voters.

The organization has already had an impact. It pressured the CPD to release the memorandum of understanding, and has pressed to spread the message that the commission is controlled by the parties and designed to lessen the pressure on candidates.

"It's about transparency," George Farah, Open Debates founder, told Harvard Law Today magazine this month. "If Republicans, Democrats or any organization are secretly controlling the most important public forum, it is unbelievably critical for the American people to be aware of that."

Farah said he began to wonder about the commission in 1996, when he watched as Ross Perot, a third-party candidate, was blocked from the debates, even though he had popular support in polls and primaries. "That piqued my interest," Farah said. "I did a little preliminary research and found that the process was being controlled discreetly."

Open Debates announced sites and dates for five presidential debates and one vice-presidential debate. Two dates have already come and gone, a scenario that will likely be repeated through the final scheduled date Oct. 15 at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale.

"Now, President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry must decide whether to courageously participate in real presidential debates that maximize voter education, or to manipulate the debates and hide behind a compliant commission," said Farah of the debate schedule.

Viewers can see for themselves tonight if the candidates are debating or simply hiding behind a compliant commission.