No Debate

How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates

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by George Farah

Seven Stories Press

Due/Published April 2004, 192 pages, paper

ISBN 1583226303

The presidential debates -- broadcast to tens of millions of Americans -- are the only decisive political discussion between the candidates to which an ever-increasing number of unaffiliated voters may look. Yet the two major parties dictate almost every aspect of the event, stifling broad electoral choice.

In No Debate, author and lobbyist George Farah uses the lens of the presidential election, an event he argues is singularly important to our electoral democracy, to examine just how open America's elections may or may not be. Central to his argument is the national debate sponsor, the Commission on Presidential Debates, an ostensibly nonpartisan group which Farah exposes as an arm's length organ of the major parties to keep out viable third parties. In this meticulously researched exposŽ, Farah finds a determinedly collusive commission, its board boasting some of the most powerful partisans in the country, through which tax-deductible corporate political donations to both major parties are funneled.

Along the way, Farah examines the backroom maneuverings and political calculations of the major parties: from Ross Perot's strategic debate invitation in 1992, to his exclusion in 1996, to the treatment of Buchanan and Nader in the 2000 election. With startling clarity No Debate documents a grievous institutional rigging of the electoral process, wherein glorified news conferences pass as debate and the two parties call the shots at the electorate's expense.