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No Debate
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Product Description：
The presidential debates are the "Super Bowl of politics": the democratic centerpiece of the election season. These quadrennial confrontations-broadcast to tens of millions of Americans-are the only decisive political discussion between the candidates to which an ever-increasing number of unaffiliated voters may look. Yet the two major parties dictate almost every aspect of the event, stifling broad electoral choice. In No Debate, author and lobbyist George Farah uses the lens of the presidential election, an event he argues is singularly important to our electoral democracy, to examine just how open America's elections may or may not be. Central to his argument is the national debate sponsor, the Commission on Presidential Debates, an ostensibly nonpartisan group which Farah exposes as an arm's length organ of the major parties to keep out viable third parties. In this meticulously researched expos, Farah finds a determinedly collusive commission, its board boasting some of the most powerful partisans in the country, through which tax-deductible corporate political donations to both major parties are funneled. Along the way, Farah examines the backroom maneuverings and political calculations of the major parties: from Ross Perot's strategic debate invitation in 1992, to his exclusion in 1996, to the treatment of Buchanan and Nader in the 2000 election. With startling clarity No Debate documents a grievous institutional rigging of the electoral process, wherein glorified news conferences pass as debate and the two parties call the shots at the electorate's expense. George Farah is the founder and executive director of Open Debates, a Washington-based nonprofit focused on reforming the presidential debate process. His articles have appeared in Harvard Law Record, Extra! and Princeton's Progressive Review. Amazon.com Review：
For pure political drama at the height of election season, there's nothing quite like a televised presidential debate. Though the candidates are stringently prepped before entering the event, surprises and raw candor often slip through as voters get their best opportunity to make direct comparisons. But according to author George Farah, Americans are not getting all the drama they're entitled to. Through the combined efforts of the Democratic and Republican establishments, legitimate third-party candidates are denied an arena to present their views, usually based on the notion that they are not viable contenders. This leads to a tautological situation: they can't debate because they aren't viable and they aren't viable because they're not allowed to debate. In No Debate, Farah provides extensive background on how the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), dominated by Democratic and Republican party operatives, took over the debate process from more non-partisan groups and then entrenched their parties in power. Farah also provides illuminating insight on how, despite such collusion, the major parties continued to joust for power, telling of when the Clinton campaign feigned a desire to include Ross Perot the 1996 debates and agreed to drop the demand only when the hapless Dole camp caved in on all other issues. All of these backroom deals and shenanigans undermine democracy itself, according to Farah, as the electorate is denied access to ideas outside the self-perpetuating dominant parties and is thus disenfranchised from open democracy. To remedy the problem, Farah also proposes to return power of the debates to a non-partisan panel of citizen experts. The magnitude of the entrenchment problem Farah describes bodes ill for the implementation of his proposals, but No Debate is sure to make one watch more skeptically the next time presidential hopefuls approach the podium. --John Moe
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