With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the running as an independent candidate in the 2024 presidential election, it’s a good time to revisit a part of the US election process that seems specifically designed to protect the status quo.
In 1987, a strange thing happened on the treacherous road to US democracy. Instead of the League of Women Voters (LWV) sponsoring the US presidential debates, something the ladies had done without a hitch since 1976, the campaign teams of George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis agreed behind closed doors to a “memorandum of understanding” that would authorize them to decide on a number of crucial issues, including how candidates could participate in the debates, which individuals could serve as panelists, and even the height of the lecterns.
Thus was born the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a nonprofit corporation established under the joint control of the Democratic and Republican parties, which lays down the law as to who may participate in the televised debates. Yes, you read that right. The two major political parties in the country, which have enjoyed a duopoly over the White House since the Civil War (specifically with the election of the Republican President Ulysses S. Grant in 1869), awarded themselves the authority to keep all possible contenders to the throne at a safe distance. That’s a bit like Miss Pennsylvania and Miss New York teaming up to determine who may qualify in the annual Miss America beauty pageant. Not surprisingly, many voices in the country expressed outrage over the change.
“The League of Women Voters is withdrawing its sponsorship of the........© RT.com