Free and Equal Elections Foundation announced today that four candidates have confirmed their participation in the 2012 Presidential Debate at the University Club of Chicago on October 23: Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode, and Justice Party candidate Rocky Anderson. This debate is the only 2012 Presidential Debate featuring four candidates. The top six candidates were invited to participate. Democratic Party candidate and incumbent Barack Obama and Republican Party candidate Mitt Romney are welcome to participate in this historic debate. The moderator will be announced shortly. “The four candidates participating represent a nice balance of right and left leaning candidates,” stated Christina Tobin, chair of Free and Equal. “This debate will cover the real issues facing our country such as foreign policy, the economy, and civil rights, rather than topics that further divide us.” http://freeandequal.org/debates/four-candidates-confirmed-for-the-2012-presidential-debate
I don't see a mix of left leaning and right leaning candidates in that group of 4. Just 2 left leaning ones and two who want to stick to the constitution.
The 3rd party with 4 candidates starts at 6 pm Pacific Time. The pre-debate show is now on. http://rt.com/on-air/rt-america-air/
It looked like Larry King showed up right before it started, since ha asked on air whether audience cheering was allowed, and since he and the woman moderator forgot to allow candidates to give their prepared opening remarks. King kept reminding us that the candidates have no chance to win.
Which 2 declined? There was no Socialist candidate present. None met the definition of left, because none said a word about moving wealth from the rich to the other classes. Virgil liked States Rights so he met the definition of right. All disliked the new law allowing government to detain you forever without a trial. All except Virgil wanted marijuana legalized.
The two that wanted public financing of elections are certainly left. And there was plenty of rich bashing from those two. Did you even bother to look at the WWW sites of the candidates? I did.
As for public financing, all 4 disliked the 2 big parties getting $100 million each of government money to campaign. I haven't read the sites. This thread is about the debate. Apparently I'm the only one here who watched.
Nobody got $100M each. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/04/obama-campaign-breaks-fund-raising-record/ For the first time in history neither major presidential nominee is accepting federal matching funds in the general election campaign, only intensifying the chase for dollars.
One candidate complained loudly about the $100M for each party, the audience whooped it up and cheered him, another candidate agreed when he got to talk, etc. Maybe they were all wrong; I'm just a basketball genius, not a fact-checker.
Something like the $100M. W was the first to refuse the matching funds. He was easily able to raise far more, and through more and smaller individual donations than Gore. If he accepted the matching funds, he wouldn't have been able to raise money beyond a certain amount. That amount being far less than he raised privately. Obama pulled his first flip flop by promising to take the matching funds, but when the time came, he turned it down. McCain had little choice but to take the matching a funds. He was outspent something like 8 to 1 by Obama. I think both candidates combined spent $1B in 2008. This time they'll EACH spend $1B. I have no problem with it. We Libertarians need to raise enough money to compete.
Here's an article with a written summary of what each candidate said. Or you can click on the top video to see the whole 90-minute debate. http://rt.com/usa/news/third-party-debate-us-election-094/ Bonus: a post-debate interview of two of the candidates. http://rt.com/usa/news/us-third-party-candidates-175
