Ralph Nader has again called for more inclusive general election presidential debates. See this story. The case for more inclusive general election debates is stronger than ever, because the 8-candidate and 9-candidate Republican presidential debates this season have attracted so many viewers and so much commentary. These Republican debates are strong evidence that multi-candidate debates are useful
In the entire history of the United States, there has never been a general presidential election with more than 7 candidates who could theoretically have won the election. For a list of the presidential candidates in every general election 1856-2004 who were on the ballot in enough states to theoretically win the election, see here. “On the ballot” in the years before 1892 (in other words, in the years before there were government-printed ballots) means candidates who went to the trouble to nominate slates of presidential elector candidates, print up their names on privately-printed ballots, and distribute them to voters who wanted such a ballot, in states containing a majority of the electoral vote.
The link to the chart for 1856-2004 does not include 2008, but in 2008 there were six presidential candidates who were on the ballot in states with a majority of the electoral vote: Obama, McCain, Barr, Nader, Baldwin, and McKinney.
So what do you all think would happen if Ron Paul somehow got the GOP nod? Would the Libertarians even bother to run a candidate? Would the Constitution Party? Would the Green Party? Americans Elect would certainly run a moderate. In such a candidate debate we might see four candidates agreeing with each other on most issues only disagreeing on the minor details. Interesting, yes. Informative?
4.Phil Sawyer Says:
November 15th, 2011 at 7:33 pm
6.Brandon Magoon [wrote in an earlier post]:
November 14th, 2011 at 8:47 am
It’s a lot more likely Ron Paul [rather than Buddy Roemer] will run as an opposition party candidate and appeal to the OWS people. After all he already has supporters there.
7.Phil Sawyer [replied in that earlier post]:
November 15th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
The really interesting thing about the Buddy Roemer campaign, though, is that he seems to be something of a populist. With all due respect to Dr. Ron Paul, not all mavericks in the Republican Party are libertarian in orientation.
How many gigabytes of data in the BAN super-database ???
How much cost to print each private candidate ballot before 1888-1892 ???
Phil, I don’t see Ron Paul as running to be an “opposition” candidate. That kind of mischief does not appear to be in his philosophy. Ron Paul already said that he didn’t want to do it. Given that he had his real chance three years ago, I tend to believe him. I don’t know what happened between him and Bob Barr last time, but I’m not holding my breath for another CP endorsement.
#1 The Greens would most certainly run a candidate if Paul got the GOP nomination. They’ed probably get more votes than they would if the GOP nominated, say, Romney.
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Libertarian Party presidential candidate Miss Joy Waymore [Libertarian] has elected her name as the fifth US Presidential candidate elected to the USA Parliament’s presidential debate committee (PDC).
The ranked choice eballots cast by presidential candidates and kept as proof can be viewed on the web page at this URl:
http://usparliament.org/pdc.php
Typo, should have been Miss Joy Waymire [Libertarian]