Mixed Coverage for Third Party Presidential Campaigns

Today, the Washington Post ran a story on Ron Paul's supporters at his rally in St. Paul. The article focused on working class supporters who were making great sacrifices to get to Paul's rally. The purpose of the rally was to convince the RNC to allow Ron Paul to speak. It obviously fell on deaf ears.

Last week, several public radio stations, including KPCC in Pasadena, posted podcasts and stories about Bob Barr, the Libertarians' presidential candidate. Barr's supporters were trying to raise their candidate's profile during the DNC convention in Denver.

Yet, there was very little coverage about the Nader/Gonzalez campaign's "Open the Debate." Val Kilmer, Congressional candidate Cindy Sheehan, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Sean Penn spoke at the rally held at University of Denver's Magness Auditorium. According to Nader/Gonzalez's website, over 4,000 supporters attended the "Open the Debate" rally. Ralph Nader and his running mate, Matt Gonzalez is scheduled tomorrow (Sept. 4) in Minneapolis.

Third parties have played a crucial part in getting key issues into the minds of voters-and eventually into the mainstream. An example would be women suffrage. Both the Prohibition and Socialist Parties promoted women's suffrage during the late 1800's. But women suffrage didn't become law until Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the 19th amendment in August 1920.

Historians agreed that FDR hadn't thought of the "New Deal" when he was selected by the Democrats in 1932 to be their torchbearer. Instead, FDR used the ideas of third parties to try to reverse the impact of the Great Depression. A case in point is social security. The Socialist Party supported a fund to provide temporary compensation for the unemployed in the late 1920's. Yet, the Social Security Act was not passed till 1935.

Political debate introduces more ideas for the public to ponder, weigh and evaluate. By limiting the nation's political discussion, we limit the solutions that could address our nation's problems.