I was going to be bummed about missing the debates because I'll be at work. Then I found out they're not debates in any way, shape, or form.
(10.) They aren't debates!"A debate is a head-to-head, spontaneous, structured argument over the merits of an issue," Rice says. "Under the ridiculous 32-page contract that reads like the rules for the Miss America Pageant, there will be no candidate-to-candidate questions, no rebuttal to your opponent's points, no cross questions or cross answers, no rebuttals, no follow-up questions -- that's not a debate, that's a news conference."
It turns out that the debates aren't, and haven't been for nearly two decades.
(9.) The debates were hijacked from the truly independent League of Women Voters in 1986."The League of Women Voters ran these debates with an iron hand as open, transparent, non-partisan events from 1976 to 1984," Rice says. "The men running the major campaigns ended their control when the League defiantly included John Anderson and Ross Perot, and used tough moderators and formats the parties didn't like. The parties snatched the debates from the League and formed the Commission on Presidential Debates -- the CPD -- in 1986."
I'm actually a bit scared that we're the ones trying to proselytize our brand of democracy to the world. All it takes is reading Zinn's A People's History of the United States or Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me to make me want to renounce my citizenship and move to a country with real freedom and democracy, like the Netherlands. It's not like my vote really matters, I'd be better off playing the lottery.