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Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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October 17, 2002
Nordlinger's Newspeak
Writing in his Impromptus column at National Review Online, Jay Nordlinger whipped up some particularly stupid Orwellian Newspeak. "In New Jersey, ex-senator Frank Lautenberg won�t debate his Republican challenger unless all candidates are included � every fringe-ist and nut in the state. That means there will be no meaningful debate...That�s pretty gutless � and it serves the public ill." He might as well have noted that freedom is slavery, and that war is peace.
Apparently a debate is only properly meaningful to the likes of Nordlinger if it is limited to the pre-annointed two "legitimate" candidates. You know, the ones with the pollsters telling them what the public wants to hear, or what their research tells them will cause the least number of voters to hate them. Other than tribal loyalty, it's most difficult to tell the Republicans and Democrats apart in most races. They're both spinning out their pricey consultant's sucky suck-offs dumbed down for the stupidest end of the voting pool. Other candidates can be presumptively dismissed and squashed on grounds of being a "fringe-ist and nut." No need to expose these folk to the voters and let them decide which is which.
There are a total of six candidates set for the New Jersey US senate ballot. You can't have a meaningful debate between six people? Why not? Few races in the country have even as many as six candidates. Even the presidential debate would have no more than half a dozen candidates based on the reasonable and objective minimal requirement of being on enough state ballots to have at least a theoretical chance of being elected.
Third party "fringe" candidates provide great public service. They cause the candidates to differentiate. Republicans, for example, have lost at least a couple of US senate seats in close elections recently and control of the senate because of votes going to Libertarian party candidates. Perhaps the Republicans will keep in mind that they need to nominate something besides a watered down Democrat if they want to keep their base. On the other side, of course, Ralph Nader and his Green party famously cost Al Gore the White House in 2000 for not being quite enough of a commie- a service for which I for one will be eternally grateful.
Then again, sometimes the "fringe" candidates actually suit the public, and end up taking the office. Jesse Ventura would be the obvious recent example. It happens from time to time. Even without winning and actually holding the office, a strong vote for a third party can send a powerful message.
Third party candidates serve a particularly valuable function in public debates. They generally don't expect to actually win, and have come to say their piece rather than just parrot some tracking poll. They inject valuable issues that the front runners would never touch. For example, it pleased me very much to watch Libertarian Ken Krawchuk in the Pennsylvania gubernatorial debate this week repeatedly waving around a copy of the Pennsylvania state constitution demanding to know the source of the governor's authority for any of the other candidate's very similar schemes for further socializing the medical industry. Maybe one of these candidates will take off, or one of their issues will resonate. Maybe they won't. You don't know until you put it in front of the voters.
All the candidates for an office need to come face to face in order to say that you've had a fair election. It would get real sticky to have to legislate this; it should be just a basic expectation of democracy. The voters should demand that ALL the candidates for an office face off in debate. There should arguably be consideration for considerably more substantial electoral reforms to say you're really having fair representation, but at a minimum candidates who jump through the ballot access hoops have earned a right to say their piece.
Interest groups sucking off the public teat throw many millions of dollars at candidates who will do their bidding. Fine. Everybody has a right to spend their money supporting whatever viewpoint they wish in this country- even if I think they're scurrilous. Give the people a face to face debate among the candidates. After that, if the trial lawyers and unions want to spend $200 million buying every tv ad slot for six months, they're within rights. Let the voters take it from there.
posted by Al at 10/17/2002 12:55:00 PM
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