George W. Bush Administration Undersecretary of State Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James K. Glassman, an adviser to Level The Playing Field and one of the backers of the Change The Rule campaign, writes at The Daily Beast in support of inviting a third candidate to the presidential debates next fall.
Glassman says the popularity of candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump and the large number of Americans who do not affiliate with either the Democratic or Republican party shows that voters want more choices. However, he writes, “an independent or third-party candidate can’t get elected without being on the stage for the final fall 2016 presidential debates,” and the Commission on Presidential Debates, “a group of 17 unelected citizens, nearly all of them stalwarts of the major parties, is blocking them.”
Change The Rule, “an informal group of 50 current and former public officials and leaders in business, academia, and the military,” wants “a competition for [a] third spot” in the debates “open to all candidates who are not the Democratic and Republican nominees,” he writes. The winner of this slot would be selected through “signature drives or online voting” by April 30, 2016, to allow “enough time to boost name recognition, and put the independent on a par with the other nominees.”
The group has also “proposed a month-long series of debates, interviews, and online voting — with participation by all Americans (not just from New Hampshire or Iowa) — that would culminate in the selection of a single independent candidate” to appear in the debates.
They seem stuck on this idea that the Republican and Democratic nominees should be automatically included by virtue of their nomination. That isn’t even legal under current rules. Whatever standard for inclusion they come up with, has to apply equally to all candidates.