Why not debates that give equal time to ANY and ALL who are serious about being President?

[Fire Walk With Me]

Unrelated to money, unrelated to popularity, unrelated to opinion.

This country is about equality, an equal vote for each citizen. How about an equal voice for each candidate, guaranteed by law, without exception?

Money and arbitrary whim control too much in this country, and we're moving into a position where it controls even more. Those who speak the most truth are not being given the opportunity to share it and to thus instigate necessary change.

Things can get worse than they already are. We must return to our Constitutional rights, by supporting the only ones interested in supporting the Constitution.

[midlife_mo_Jo]

1. I agree in theory (hate the ludicrous amounts of money necessary)

but disagree in cold practicality.

How do you determine "any and all" who are serious?

The time to make it clear that you're serious is BEFORE the debates.

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. Before the debates, yes.

And you can't allow it to be the opportunistic madhouse which occured after the repubs managed to unseat the California governer, and the special election ensued. Someone will -always- look to take advantage of any weakness in the system. Anyone obviously doing so should be immediately removed.

I'd say that the current crop of Dem candidates are a decent spread, and equal time should be given to each, in each forum, always.

[Orangepeel]

3. defining who is serious is always the rub

There are about 50 declared Democratic candidates.

http://www.vote-smart.org/election_president_search.php?type=party

[Fire Walk With Me]

7. Obama: Serious.

Gary Coleman: Not serious. (Yes, he was one of over 100 who put themselves in for the forced California special election.)

Should it be done with a dividing line between those who are obvious opportunists and those who have a track record of doing the public good via service?

[Orangepeel]

13. what if a newspaper says having a rented office in a state is serious?

the line between Obama and Gary Coleman is bright, but other lines aren't as obvious to everyone.

[Fire Walk With Me]

18. Back to the OP. Equal time for each serious candidate.

The system must change, somehow, in answer to all of these obvious questions.

[Orangepeel]

19. I don't disagree that the system should change. But "serious" is subjective

it can't be based on whether or not a candidate considered him/herself to be serious (how many of those 50 do?) or on what they have to say (because who judges?).

"Serious" has to be based on something objective. Money is measurable. Polling statistics are countable. Degree of organization (which is open to interpretation and also highly correlated with money) is, at least, somewhat quantifiable.

That's why those things are used. What's a better solution (other than, "the line should be drawn behind the candidate I support")?

[rucky]

24. There should be a test for seriousness.

Like making them wrestle an alligator, or dive into a pool of Jell-o.

[MADem]

4. Define "serious."

Dennis Kucinich isn't "serious." If he were, he'd be fundraising in an aggressive way, he'd have built a real staff and organization in all fifty states, and he'd have visited every corner of Iowa. He'd be there or in NH 24/7, not prancing off to Syria using Presidential campaign funds (I still can't BELIEVE he did that!), or going to Ani DiFranco concerts in non-kickoff states.

I'm against letting "any foolish asshole" waste my time. I want to hear from candidates who are serious--and how do we know they're serious? People give them money, because they are, in essence, putting their money where their views are. I think letting any nut get up on the soapbox isn't helpful. I don't particularly want to fund that out of my tax dollars. Let the kooks upload their bullshit to YOUTUBE.

This country isn't actually about equality, and all votes are NOT equal. The caucus goers in IA have way more clout than the primary voters of the states that come after Super Tuesday. A voter in Wyoming has more clout than a voter in NY, when you examine the number of people they have per Senator they send to DC. The country tries to be representative, but all votes aren't created equal. Even if we insist otherwise.

Money has ALWAYS talked. Since Day One of the founding of this nation. If it weren't for MONEY, French money and a lot of it, we'd still be singing God Save The Queen.

[Fire Walk With Me]

5. We need to outgrow this system, then.

Dennis is still the only one serious about impeachment and upholding the Constitution.

[MADem]

He's not serious about campaigning. He could give a shit about the voters in Iowa.

Or maybe he's too cool for them...

Iowa is, like it or not, a gatekeeper. He doesn't want to play by the existing rules. And if you don't play by the rules, you don't play for very long.

He also isn't very serious about being a careful steward of the campaign finance money he got from We, The People, OR the fools who threw money at him--unless there's a shitload of Voters Abroad in Lebanon and Syria.

I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't qualify for federal campaign funds next time he decides he might like to take a vacation on the taxpayer dime. I also wouldn't be surprised if someone doesn't look into some of those expenditures and make him repay some of them.

[Fire Walk With Me]

10. I saw him in live streaming in an Iowa debate. He was pretty good.

A tad heavy-handed in appealing to immigrants..

I was unaware about these financial issues. I'm sorry to hear about them. However, he's still the only one mentioning the Constitution with any amount of seriousness and doing anything serious about impeachment.

Wexler may have ties to online gambling interests, judging from his website. Weird. I don't understand.

[MADem]

11. The debates aren't where the campaigning happens. He doesn't bother with

the rural communities. He doesn't go out and meet the caucus goers. It's a shitload of dull, slogging work, and he's uninterested, apparently.

Here's a cite for that assertion, FWIW: http://blog.cleveland.com/openers/2007/09/kucinich_campaign_expenditure.html

[Fire Walk With Me]

12. Hmm. It's a shame that he's not getting out there like he should.

I had received an email from the campaign and his wife will be here in CA doing a peace train promotion, but I can't afford it right now.

I consider his impeachment bills and anti-corporate efforts in government to be all the campaigning that he needs to do. To sell me, that is.

Cheers.

[MADem]

14. If he were serious, his wife wouldn't BE in CA. She'd be in Iowa.

Huckabee has done it without any money. And now he's getting some.

Huck-a-buck is SERIOUS, see?

[Fire Walk With Me]

17. You have zero intention of seeing the positive side in anything I post, dont you?

[MADem]

20. You don't want to agree with ANY of my opinions, do you?

That's as silly as what you just said.

This is a discussion board, not a "ME TOO" chorus. If you don't want to discuss, fine.

[MADem]

9. .....duplicated post....

[elaineb]

16. Kucinich is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't

If he *was* spending as much time in Iowa as the other candidates, then you'd hear the Kucinich haters on here yet again accusing him of not spending enough time in Washington or working in his district. He really can't win with y'all. But that's okay...we'll all get the candidate we deserve. This is a sort of democracy we're in after all. But I won't blame the rest of the world for continuing to disdain us if we screw THIS election up. There's a hell of a lot of work to be done starting in 2008, and I really doubt that most of these current candidates are up for it, considering what little they've done or even tried to do to counter Bush in the last few years.

As for "serious", then you're wrong--Kucinich is serious as a heart attack. If you don't believe he puts his heart and soul into politics, then I don't know where your head's at. He wants to get this country back on a true progressive and DEMOCRATIC path--believe that. If you think once in the White House, he'd keep his head in his shell and espouse namby-pamby centrist half-measures like many of our Democratic politicians have done for decades, well, I don't know how to convince you otherwise.

You obviously either personally dislike Kucinich for some strange psychological reason, or you just plain don't agree with his positions. If the latter, that's cool. But this post of yours is attacking him from all possible angles. How much time should he be spending in Iowa/NH versus in Washington or his own district? Is there a standard here? Or is it just that he needs to apportion his time based on how much time the OTHER candidates are spending campaigning? Same question with money. Is there a standard amount that each candidate should be spending in each state (leaving aside the fact that Kucinich has much less to start with). I've read many posts attacking Kucinich for not spending enough time in Washington or in his own district. Have you ever made such a post? (I hope not, because you'd be majorly contradicting yourself then).

Do you think the presidential race and/or country as a whole needs a voice on the left like Kucinich? With the country damaged so badly after Bush, do you really want the positions of someone like Kucinich silenced? I wonder if you agree with his positions at all. If you do, is your only gripe about him that he's, in your mind, an ineffective campaigner? Just trying to understand where you're coming from here, because these last few months on DU have me totally shaking my head at the disdainful attacks on a good and decent man.

[MADem]

21. That is total horseshit. Dodd is LIVING in IA, and he's a sitting Senator.

Clinton, Obama, and Biden are heavily present there, and they are sitting Senators too.

I think if DK decided to campaign in Iowa, people would say that he was "serious" instead of a vanity candidate. Prancing off to SYRIA in the middle of a campaign, using money from his presidential campaign coffers to make the trip, is a slap in the face to his supporters. He BLEW OFF Iowa--and the reason he did it is because it's a load of slogging out to rural areas, without all those fancy tee vee cameras. It's stump speeches in barns with a hundred people, over and over again, ten or twelve times a day. He doesn't make that many appearances EVER. Then he had the stones to cry when Iowa's debate sponsors said "You don't campaign here, you can't debate here."

And if he were such a swell politician, he wouldn't have any "serious" opponents in his own district, either, and he'd have some sort of campaign organization back home. This time, he's going to have some "serious" opposition at home, too. He should be worried.

I don't "obviously either personally dislike Kucinich for some strange psychological reason."

If I were to be as much of an ass as you just were with that snarky comment, I'd say that you were "obsessively fixated on Kucinich for some strange psychological reason." But I won't say that, because refusing to argue a point on the merits, and instead accusing someone of having "shrink" issues simply because they disagree with your poorly articulated assertions, is fucking weak. It decimates your lousy little argument, see?

Certainly, a voice on the left would help the campaign. But a REAL voice, not a fucking joke like Kucinich--he makes mainstream-appealling left issues look flaky, simply because he campaigns like a self-serving ass. He certainly isn't a Hubert Humphrey, a Paul Wellstone, a Gene McCarthy--someone who will get out there, get in it, and ENGAGE, not spend all his time at bullshit events like "Peace Train" nonsense in CA and Ani DiFranco concerts in NY, TN, and MA. He's LAZY. He preaches to the choir. He wouldn't think of challenging the views of the centrists, the moderates, or the undecideds. See, that takes WORK.

DK isn't spending ANY time in IA at all, amongst the hayseeds and rubes out in the country, and he had only three days scheduled in his own district this month--he'll be there a few extra days only because his brother--who did have some of those rather unfunny "psychological reasons" you were bleating about--was found dead the other day. His NH engagements certainly don't strain him--he isn't pushing it there, either.

He's NOT serious, and he's unhelpful to "the left" because he doesn't campaign like a serious candidate. His dilettantish ways make the issues of the left appear to be "unserious," as well.

[Orrex]

22. Damn!

I wish that I could kick and recommend a reply.

Nicely said, from start to finish!

:yourock:

[MADem]

25. Why, thank you so much!

I meant every word!

[stray cat]

6. Each person gets 60 seconds out of a two hour debate

very informative.

[Fire Walk With Me]

8. Now now, you know that's not what I meant.

If you didn't, "that's not what I meant".

The current lineup of Dem candidates is fine, but are not being given equal time. This should be changed.

[BigDDem]

15. Serious candidates have offices in Iowa

Not hard to figure out.

[robcon]

23. Kucinich knew the rules of Iowa caucuses

He is playing a martyr - perhaps as an excuse in advance for his poor electoral performance there.

[bluedog]

26. Question..who will the Kucinich supporters

support when Dennis drops out..better yet.who will Dennis support? anyone know?

[robcon]

27. DK will not drop out, IMO.

He shifted his caucus votes to Edwards in Iowa four years ago. But he didn't drop out. Maybe he'll do that again.

Like his voting style (the good is the enemy of the perfect) he is a bitter-ender in his campaign, IMO.