In the previous article on the Malachy McCourt election campaign, I gave a brief summary of the events leading up to the present day, such as some of the media coverage. But when Malachy McCourt chose to run for the Green Party in April of this year, he did not take the easy route to the New York Governors office.
It is ironic that an administration which claims to be “bringing democracy to Iraq” spends very little time in ensuring that democracy is practiced at home. If you are not a Democrat or a Republican in the United States, then the mainstream media, and, as will be pointed out later, the so-called progressive media, will give you short thrift.
So called “thrid party candidates” are met with resistance from both Republican and Democratic parties when it comes to election campaigns. Everything is done in their power to prevent them from taking part in public debates, speaking to the mainstream media or in some cases, even running for office.
Those that do get mainstream meadia coverage, are usually treated to the “oh, isn’t that cute” slot you would see at the end of the evening news rather than taken seriously.
This is a very sinister way of keeping alternatives to the two main parties out of the media. Those on the right will claim that the media has a liberal bias, and those on the left will claim that the media has a conservative bias, and much of the valuable airtime between now and the election will be filled with mud slinging between both the Democratic and Republican party candidates. They each try to be mroe controversial than the other, making the election coverage look more staged than an episode of WWE wrestling than something as serious as deciding who is going to run the country for the next four years.
Restrictions on airtime for “third party” candidates is not confined to the so called “concervative media.” In an interview with WNYC Radio, Malachy McCourt has expressed frustration at being “given the run-around” by so-called progressive broadcaster Air America. The station continues to whine about favorable coverage being given to conservitive candidates, while at the same time it refuses to interview certain progressives. Also note the time check at the start of the audio piece. Ten minutes to seven, ergo, that “isn’t that cute” slot at the end of the news bulletin
On October, two other Green party candidates along with Malachy McCourt, who were running vor different offices in the state of New York, those being Rachel Treichler for Attorney General and Howie Hawkins for the U.S. Senate, were excluded from a debate organised by news channel NY1 and the League of Women voters. Debate criteria included polls that barred third-party candidates and fundraising thresholds that excluded Green Party candidates, who do not accept corporate contributions. An independent Zogby International poll found that among independent voters, Hawkins polled 21 percent.
News station WNYC interviews Howie Hawkins after being excluded from a senatorial debate. The League of women voters withdrew their support for this debate as they saw Hawkins as a bone fide candidate.
But this behaviour is not confined to New York. From the Arab American:
In spite of IRS requirements for non-profit debate-sponsoring organizations to treat all candidates equally, Green candidates are being excluded from debates all across the country.
Illinois Green gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney polling as high as 7.8 percent, was excluded from an October 2 debate hosted by Illinois Radio Network. Governor Rod Blagojevich, Democrat, has backed out of other scheduled debates because Whitney was invited or was about to be invited.
[..]
Here in Michigan, David Sole, Green candidate for U.S. Senate, and president of UAW Local 2334, was excluded from the October 18 debate between Democratic incumbent Stabenow and Republican nominee Bouchard at the Detroit Economic Club. The Sole campaign has filed suit with the Federal Elections Commission because the exclusion violates federal election rules. Sole calls for people to vote against the war by voting for him.
Stabenow has voted to support the war six times. She was also among the 12 Democrats who voted in September for S. 3930, the Military Commissions Act, also called the “torture act.” She ranks third highest among all Congresspeople in receiving Israeli lobby dollars. Sole has called for an end to U.S. support to the state of Israel.
One more example of a candidate being excluded from a debate. Meet Michael Berg, You might have heard of his son, Nick Berg, who was executed by Mohamed Al-Zagawi in Iraq and a video of his death distributed over the internet. The chair at this Delaware debate had Mr. Berg ejected from the hall before starting the debate.
Much of the material for this article has been gleaned from various sources including the Long Island for Malachy website, and the United States Green Party. In the final part on this, I will be writing on the how Malachy McCourt’s supporters are using Grassroots and netroots methods to compete with the multi-million dollar campaigns.
