WHY ONLY TWO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES?

Ken Schoolland

Hawaii Reporters

October 14, 2008

Following the McCain/Obama Presidential debates, Hawaii Pacific University hosted students who wanted to watch. Afterward, “both” presidential candidates had been heard and journalists wanted to know which of the two were favored by the students.

No one seemed even the slightest bit curious why there were only two candidates on the platform. Perhaps there were only two candidates because alternative parties have been roughed up so badly. Take the 2004 election for instance.

BOTH OTHER PARTIES

Michael Badnarik and David Cobb, respective presidential candidates for the Libertarian Party and the Green Party, were both arrested, handcuffed, fingerprinted, and jailed on October 8, 2004 while the presidential debate of the Democrat and Republican was being broadcast nationally from St. Louis.

These arrests took place when Badnarik attempted to serve the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) with a court order from an Arizona Superior Court judge. The Arizona judge had ordered the CPD to prove that a debate scheduled in Arizona for October 13 did not constitute special treatment for Democrats and Republicans.

Despite legal action, the debate in Arizona proceeded without interruption. Badnarik protested the expenditure of $2.5 million of tax funds for this event by public institutions, Arizona State University and the City of Tempe.

Badnarik’s lawyer argued that these expenditures constituted an illegal, partisan campaign contribution of taxpayer funds because they excluded officially recognized candidates who appear on the Arizona ballot, as they did on ballots all across the country.

CAN’T STAND UP TO WHOM?

The irony couldn’t be more crisp. We had George Bush and John Kerry boldly claiming that they were the ones to stand up to terrorists and Al Qaeda in order to bring democracy to the Middle East. But these same guys were unwilling to stand up to legitimate challengers in a public debate.

Bush and Kerry even signed a pact with the CPD that they would not be on the same platform with any other party during the election season. McCain and Obama did the same thing this year to freeze out “confusing competition.”

Was it too confusing to have more than two candidates? Democrats and Republicans didn’t think so during the primary season when they had as many as nine Democratic or nine Republican candidates on the same platform last year.

Thus, Democrats and Republicans have engineered a system of control over public debate in America that is so thorough that their opponents are arrested, the media doesn’t even report it, and few, if any, in the audience question it. How many people even know there are alternative parties, much less the names of their candidates until they walk into the voter’s booth on election day?

Is this a model of democracy for other nations?

WHERE HAVE ALL THE VOTERS GONE?

With 80% voter turnout in Afghanistan, it is somewhat embarrassing to US officials that voter turnout in America is so low. Only half the population registers to vote and only half of the registered voters show up at the polls on election day.

Non-voters are accused of being apathetic. But this misses the point. Among these non-voters are highly concerned, patriotic, and intellectual citizens who have become cynical about the rigging of the American political system.

Every year I survey hundreds of university students asking:

• 1) Do you believe the campaign promises of politicians? Amidst laughter, the overwhelming answer is, “No.”
• 2) Who is more likely to be elected, an honest politician or a dishonest politician? Still chuckling, the overwhelming answer is, “The dishonest politician.”
• 3) Do politicians have higher, lower, or the same moral standards as you have? Solemnly, the overwhelming answer is, “Lower.”

Try it sometime. It’s scary.

The problem of low voter turnout in America is that people don’t trust politicians. If the public doesn’t trust the messenger, they won’t buy the product. “Why should I bother to vote?” people say. “Politicians will do whatever they want to do after the election anyway.”

A CURE?

A cure for distrust in the political arena is the same as it is in the commercial arena—competition and choice.

Suppose that General Motors and Ford were able to outlaw all of their competitors and have joint advertising campaigns. Would we expect GM and Ford to make better cars and to have greater integrity in their advertising and in their service agreements? Hardly!

Likewise, competition and choice are essential to all the things we dream for in our political system: innovation, integrity, accountability, and involvement. This will never happen so long as competition is muzzled and jailed.

Professor Ken Schoolland teaches Economics and Political Science at Hawaii Pacific University and is the Author of Jonathan Gullible: A Free-Market Odyssey. He is a member of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii's Board of Scholars.