The Commission on Presidential Debates is at it again! This time they won't allow third party libertarian candidate Bob Barr to debate with McCain and Obama, but he won't step down without a fight.
So while the two major party candidates battle it up on stage; "Reason.tv" held a debate where Bob questioned the candidates policies and suggested his own.
I will post links to the video at the bottom of the page, but to understand why he was not included you would have to look at the history of the presidential debates in previous elections and the tough requirements third party candidates have to conquer to compete.
Let's jump back 16 years shall we? It all started when Ross Perot was running for president as an independent in 1992. For the record, Perot is a wealthy buisnessman from Texarkarna, Texas who founded Electronic Data Systems and has a net worth of over 5 billion dollars. While running for president he spent 65.4 million of his own money funding his campaign. He was included in the Presidential Debates, because he overcame requirements needed to participate and because George H. W. Bush demanded that he be allowed to. At the end of his campaign he gained nearly 19% of the vote receiving approx. 20 million votes, but only 0 electoral votes.
After viewing the campaign of Ross Perot the CPD raised the barrier to 15% in the Polls for a third party to be included in the debates. This made nearly inpossible for Bob Barr to be included in the debates. Because of the barrier the presidential debates nearly restrict anyone but McCain and Obama to participate, which also stops Barr to debate the real issues like the Federal Reserve, the Economy, withdrawing troops from the world and other issues that concern the people of our nation.
However going back to Reason; Bob Barr held a counter debate on the Internet and some few thousand people tuned in to watch it. On this debate he listened to what McCain and Obama said they would do about the issues facing America. Then would comment on their decisions and propose his ideas to combat these problems. Their are 2 parts to the counter debate and they will be linked below!
