Regardless of your view on either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama, you are missing a lot of new ideas and fresh perspective in every presidential debate that only contains candidates from the two major parties. The last time a third candidate was on the stage in a presidential debate was in 1992 when Ross Perot self financed his own campaign for president. What Perot was able to bring to the stage was the ability to go after both the Democratic and Republican parties for their stale and convoluted ideas about the country. He pointed out the similarities in each candidate, and how they were essentially two peas of the same pod. With his own financing he could point out to the public that he was not bought and paid for, he would have no allegiance to any financiers of his president.
While I am not saying the presidential needs Ross Perot back up there, they do need someone else who can call both of the candidates out and make the general public realize there are other options out there. The difficult part would be figuring out just how to get a specific third party into the debates. Some have said whichever candidate is polling the highest nationally, others have said to go with any third party candidate that has actually help an elected national office either presently or in the past as it would prove they are capable of winning an election. We all know there are a lot of wing nuts out there that run for president every 4 years. And I doubt many people want to have someone on stage that is merely a distraction from the other candidates that are most likely to get the votes needed to become the next president. But figuring out who is eligible to go would be the easy part, once we as a country decided that it was time to put another voice in the debates. It would be good for the voters, good for the two major political parties-even if they would not admit it, and it would be good for the country.
That is a great point. One of, if not the biggest issues with today's political climate is that our current two party system has a choke hold on it. It becomes hyper polarizing. It has become one of the biggest with us or against us mentalities that has been seen in this country. The Democrats and Republicans actively try to perpetuate this as well. There is so little room for honest and open discussion. If you are a democrat, then you are demonized for thinking a more conservative, or Republican view has merit. When each party has upwards of a TRILLION Dollars at their disposal, there are only a few independent people on earth who could finance a campaign against that.
It keeps our REAL change from even being discussed. Instead of talking debt reduction, we talk deficit reduction. Instead of a clean slate look at the tax code, we get additional loopholes and complexity. Instead of a streamlining and simplification of healthcare, we get Obamacare.
In all of this, I can't help but partly blame the third party candidates themselves. They need to start campaigning as independents from the very beginning as soon as the primaries begin. Stop waiting till the last weeks and months before the election to make a push. If you are going to be serious, you must get your name out there as soon as possible. Only then will you have enough time to get people to ask the questions, who is this third party candidate, what do they stand for, and why are they a good alternative to the Dems and Repubs?
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