OH: Senate Candidate Calls for Open Debates as Democrats and Republicans Prepare to Exclude Independents and Third Parties

A press release from Dan La Botz, the Socialist Party candidate for US Senate in Ohio, emailed to TPID:

OHIO SENATE DEBATE: MINOR PARTIES MUST BE INCLUDED – LA BOTZ

Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Lee Fisher are reported by the press to be preparing to hold a series of debates in several Ohio cities, debates in which apparently only they will participate. To my knowledge no other candidates for the U.S. Senate seat for which they are running have been invited. Apparently we will face in this election the same corporate political duopoly as in the past.

Election forums in which only the two major party candidates participate do a disservice to our democracy, denying citizens the right to hear from other parties and their candidates. We need to have open forums, public meetings, and a genuine debate between representatives of the various political alternatives. Election debates should be organized by a non-partisan group, such as the League of Women Voters, and should include all parties and candidates.

The election process is already obscenely perverted by the enormous amounts of money, much of it corporate money, which pours into the coffers of the Republicans and Democrats, permitting them to flood TV, radio and now the internet with political advertising. Rob Portman has raised more than $2 million while Lee Fisher has raised more than $1 million, while minor parties have raised amounts of merely thousands. This gives the old corporate parties the power to dominate the air waves and billboards, while other parties are relegated to the shadows.

Ohioans and the American people have a right to hear from all of the candidates, and at one time they did through genuine public forums and town hall meetings. Today the two corporate parties and the TV and radio corporations generally collude to keep minor parties and their candidates out of the debates. Yet most Americans have been disillusioned and have become disenchanted with the two major parties and would like to hear other options.

Recent polls by a variety of organizations show that a majority of Americans don’t approve of President Obama, the Congress, Republicans or Democrats. Simply put: people are sick of the Republicans and Democrats. Interestingly, three recent polls by quite different organizations—Rasmussen, Gallup and Pew—show that about one-third of the American people are sympathetic to the socialism. Not in favor, not supporters, but sympathetic and interested. Shouldn't the election debates permit those people to learn more about the Socialist Party, its platform and its candidate?

We need to open up the political debates to include all of the parties and their candidates. Rob Portman and Lee Fisher should stand up for democracy by taking a stand to open up the debates to all of us.

Dan La Botz