The Presidential debates -- the single most important electoral event in the process of selecting a President -- should provide voters with an opportunity to see the popular candidates discussing important issues in an unscripted manner.  But the Presidential debates fail to do so, because the major party candidates secretly control them.

Presidential debates were run by the civic-minded and non-partisan League of Women Voters until 1988, when the national Republican and Democratic parties seized control of the debates by establishing the bi-partisan, corporate-sponsored Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). Posing as a nonpartisan institution committed to voter education, the CPD has continually and deceptively run the debates in the interest of the national Republican and Democratic parties, not the American people.

Every four years, negotiators for the Republican and Democratic nominees secretly draft debate contracts called Memoranda of Understanding that dictate precisely how the debates will be structured; co-chaired by the former heads of the Republican and Democratic parties, the CPD obediently implements the contracts, shielding the major party candidates from public criticism.

Such deceptive major party control severely harms our democracy. Candidates that voters want to see are often excluded; issues the American people want to hear about are often ignored; the debates have been turned into a series of glorified bipartisan news conferences, in which the candidates exchange memorized soundbites; and debate viewership has generally dropped, with twenty-five million fewer people watching the 2000 presidential debates than watching the 1992 presidential debates.  Walter Cronkite called CPD-sponsored presidential debates an “unconscionable fraud.” http://www.opendebates.org/theissue/

In addition to their partisan ties, most board members of the CPD have close ties to multinational corporations. Several are partners of corporate law firms, and collectively, the directors serve on the boards of dozens of companies, ranging from gambling to pharmaceutical to agricultural to insurance industries.

Fahrenkopf and Kirk, who control the CPD, don't just profit from Corporate America as partners of corporate law firms and directors of corporations. They are also registered lobbyists for multinational corporations, and their income as well as their clients' income is directly affected by who gets elected. Kirk has collected $120,000 for lobbying on behalf of Hoechst Marion Roussel, a German pharmaceutical company.

Kirk's lobbying practice, however, pales in comparison to that of his CPD co-chair. As president of the American Gaming Association (AGA), Frank Fahrenkopf is the lead advocate for the nation's $54-billion gambling industry. He earns $800,000 a year lobbying on behalf of 18 corporations directly involved in the hotel/casino industry -- ITT, Hilton -- as well as most of the major investment banking firms -- Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch. His advocacy consists of directing enormous financial contributions to major party candidates and saturating the media and academic world with "expert" testimony extolling gambling's "many benefits." "We're not going to apologize for trying to influence political elections," said Fahrenkopf.

What is really troubling about Kirk and Fahrenkopf's roles as corporate lobbyists has little to do with ideological incentives to exclude third-party candidates disparaging of corporate power. That Public Citizen, a civic organization founded by Ralph Nader, released reports in 2000 severely criticizing the pharmaceutical and gambling lobbies certainly didn't help Nader's chances of getting in the presidential debates.

Most importantly, by donating to the CPD, corporations make tax-deductible contributions that benefit both major parties simultaneously. Donations to the nonpartisan LWV were primarily considered civic charity. Corporations, however, perceive donations to the bipartisan CPD to be bipartisan political contributions. Nancy Neuman, former president of the League of Women Voters, explained:

One of the big differences between us and the commission was that the commission could easily raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions. They did it very quickly in 1988. Even though I would go to some corporations, I would be lucky to get $5,000. Why? Because under the commission's sponsorship, this is another soft-money deal. It is a way to show your support for the parties because, of course, it is a bipartisan commission and a bipartisan contribution. There was nothing in it for corporations when they made a contribution to the League. Not a quid pro quo. That's not the case with the commission.

http://www.opendebates.org/theissue/corpsponsor.html