Presidential Debate In Swarthmore
by JoePulcinella
I can't believe I haven't heard this before. Swarthmore College is looking like it will host one of six OPEN presidential debates on Sep 28, 2004. The Delco Times article sounds very promising.
"We are looking at this as a long-term project to improve our democracy and improve the dialogue between the candidates," Shaw said. "Under the current format, the American people receive a series of rehearsed sound bytes and stump speeches."
Some changes the Citizens Debate Commission would like to see are: the injection of legitimate third-party candidates, the lengthening of response times, candidate-to-candidate questioning, and the use of unscreened questions.
However, I suspect that Bush and Kerry will perceive it as not being in their best interests. Especially because Libertarian Michael Badnarik has already penciled it into his appointment book. Looks like The Republicrats are already looking for a back door:
"It sounds like they want free-flow debates which handlers dont particularly like," said Philadelphia-based political consultant Larry Ceisler. "Its hard enough to get the incumbent or the frontrunner to debate without changing the rules."
