Green Party candidate Jill Stein writes in USA Today: “The Democrats and Republicans should not exclude their competitors. The debate commission is a deception created by the parties to keep competition out. It undermines democracy for two parties to silence their competition. In 1988, the League of Women Voters warned the parties would ‘perpetrate a fraud on the American voter’ and refused to be ‘an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.'”

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson writes in the New York Daily News: “The two parties are rigging the debates“: “What’s different this year is the exceedingly large portion of the population … who are deeply dissatisfied with the Democratic and Republican party nominees.” A USA Today poll recently found that 76 percent of the public wants third party candidates on a majority of state ballots “included in the debates.”

Lester Holt of NBC will moderate tonight’s event. Others will be moderated by CBS, ABC, CNN and Fox personnel. Steve Scully of C-SPAN is “backup moderator.”

PETE TUCKER, Pete[at]TheFightBack.org

Tucker is an independent D.C.-based journalist who writes at TheFightBack.org. He has recently written a series of pieces on the Commission on Presidential Debates, including “How Presidential Debates Became ‘a Fraud on the American Voter.’” See the pieces here.

Tucker said today: “While no Memorandum of Understanding has been made public this year, a leaked 2012 MOU between the Obama and Romney campaigns outlined: ‘The moderator will not ask follow-up questions or comment on … questions asked by the audience or the answers of the candidates.'” [PDF]

Tucker notes that “Fed up with the [League of Women Voters, which had organized presidential debates in the 1970s and early 80s] independence, the two parties hatched a plan. In 1987, they created the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), with the Democratic and Republican chairmen serving as the organization’s co-chairs. …

“The resulting debates were ‘phony, part of an unconscionable fraud,’ said CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite. It’s ‘a charade,’ said CNN’s Bernard Shaw, ‘these were not debates.’ …

“With the civic-minded League out, money poured in. Anheuser-Bush and Philip Morris, among other corporations, provided large donations, and in return were featured prominently at the CPD debates.”

The co-chairmen of the CPD are Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr. and Michael D. McCurry. Fahrenkopf was chair of the Republican National Committee when the CPD was founded, and he represents gambling interests. Tucker notes that “Fahrenkopf’s Democratic counterpart, McCurry, is also a lobbyist. After serving as Bill Clinton’s press secretary, McCurry went on to lobby for, among others, telecoms seeking to kill net neutrality. The other 15 CPD board members are mostly party insiders and donors.”

JEFF COHEN, jcohen[at]ithaca.edu

Cohen is founder of the media watch group FAIR, an associate professor of journalism at Ithaca College, and recently wrote the piece “Why Not Expand the Presidential Debates?” — which notes: