The lesser of two evils is still evil.
The last time the American people were allowed to see more than two candidates for president on television was in 1992 when Ross Perot was allowed on stage with Democrat Bill Clinton and incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush. Perot ran as an independent, financing his own campaign and shook up American politics. He received more than 19 million votes as a result of being allowed on that stage with Bush and Clinton.
Perot wound up with about 19% of the vote in an election that Clinton won by 6 points over Bush. The fact that Perot was able to garner so much support was a direct result of his presence in the national televised debates. Naturally, the idea of a third party stealing votes from one of the major parties is a threat to the establishment.
In 1987, Democrats and Republicans unanimously agreed to form the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) which is a nonprofit corporation established with bipartisan support. The CPD’s formation was directly recommended by the bipartisan National Commission on Elections to turn “over the sponsorship of presidential debates to the two major parties.”
The CPD was chaired by heads of the Democratic and Republican parties, Paul G. Kirk and Frank Fahrenkopf and at a press conference in 1987, they both had no problem admitting that this commission was formed to essentially exclude third party candidates.
Hellbound and Down 