Candidates // Current

Could New York City Mayoral Debate Have Violated Voter's Rights?

On Wed. Oct.14th, 2009 The first Mayoral debate was held at El Museo Del Barrio, where... more

peoplesmovement
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Fake Dick Cheney 2012 Campaign Website

You don’t have to look far to see the failures of the current administration.... more

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Tear gas and Twitter: Iranians take their protests online

Iranian protesters have found a new outlet to mobilize and take action. The... more

eva2
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Profile of Newly Elected Mo. Treasurer: Clint Zweifel

JEFFERSON CITY - Campaigning for state treasurer has pretty much taken over the life... more

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Campaign '08: What the Candidates are Promising American Families

What The Candidates Are promising American Families.

CutestPrincess
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Wasilla hillbillies attack!!

ABCnews. com is reporting that now the campaigning is over the strain between aides of... more

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Behind the Candidates: Meet the people behind John McCain and Barack Obama

Who will be the key players in an Obama or McCain administration? Who will shape our... more

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GOP VP Candidate Palin Pranked by French Radio Duo

"When you come into a position underestimated..." Sarah Palin started to CKOI duo 'The... more

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Running as an Independent is challenge with victories and difficult days - it's called life!

Well, I finally met Cathy Church - who is running as an independent candidate for... more

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Sarah Haskins in Target Women: The View

Want to know what American women are thinking about politics? Just take a look at the... more

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Recap of Eight Years of Skullduggery

Skullduggery's Finest Lest We Forget We Should Revisit This Debacle!... more

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McSamers & Die Hard Bush Lovers

What more could you possibly want for the country? This has been absolutely fabulous... more

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Song For Palin

Shedding lights on the Joe six packs of this nations obsessions for the Sarah Palin.... more

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Nader Makes 21 Speeches in 15 Hours, 'Massachusetts Marathon' Breaks Guinness Record

Ralph Nader made 21 speeches in 15 hours, travelled 365 miles through MA in what has... more

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Senators, what will you do to make progress?

Tommy Spain, a young college student, addresses Barack Obama and John McCain one last... more

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Candidates should release more health records

Campbell Brown's commentary on the candidates' released health records. On Monday,... more

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While the major-party race for the White House has been the subject of broad media attention for more than a year, the corporate media have mostly ignored at least four substantial third-party and independent candidates for the presidency.

Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney and Libertarian candidate Bob Barr are both former congressmembers from the state of Georgia. Their presence in the White House race, along with independent candidate Ralph Nader and Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, would seem to present an interesting counterpoint to the major-party race between Barack Obama and John McCain. While the corporate press has apparently decided that the differences between Obama and McCain are more or less the only political opinions worth exploring this election season, the third-party and independent candidates take positions on issues like drug war policy, Israel-Palestine, civil liberties and military intervention that differ markedly from the views of either major-party candidate.

According to a Nexis news database search of the major network newscasts, McKinney's name has never been mentioned this year on the networks' news programs, while Barr and Nader's candidacies have garnered a total of only 31 mentions between them (15 times on ABC, 12 times on NBC and 4 on CBS). Including the Fox network-- which airs Fox News Sunday on its broadcast affiliates--yields one passing mention of Nader, and an interview with Barr (6/29/08). PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer offered passing mentions of Nader and Barr when they announcements as candidates (2/25/08, 5/12/08); more recently, the show has interviewed each of them one-on-one (10/14/08, 10/20/08).

The context in which Barr and Nader have been covered is worth examining; by FAIR's count, many of the references to the candidates dealt primarily with the potential effect on the fortunes of the major-party candidates--i.e., whether a third-party candidate would be a "spoiler." That accounted for 11 mentions of Barr and Nader.

Passing mentions of Nader or Barr accounted for another 13 mentions; four of these were joking or mocking references to Nader. (ABC's This Week includes humor clips from late-night talkshows, two of which included Nader as a punch line.)

A March 4 report on ABC's Good Morning America discussed the presidential election with a panel of children, one of whom asked, "There's like another thing, there's a guy named something Nader…. I think he's either running for the Green Party or the independents." ABC correspondent Chris Cuomo misinformed the children by saying "Green Party."

Actual interviews with the candidates were somewhat rare, but Nader has appeared on NBC's Meet the Press (2/24/08) and Nightly News (10/20/08), ABC's This Week (6/29/08) and the CBS Early Show (2/25/08). Barr has appeared on ABC's This Week (7/16/08).

The main question media tend to pose about third-party candidates is whether or not they will impact the outcome of the election. This is not at all surprising, given corporate media's preference for focusing on the horserace aspect of politics. The lesser-known candidates' generally low standing in the polls appears to make it less likely that they will play a decisive role on Election Day, but the media's refusal to open up the political conversation makes this outcome more or less a self-fulfilling prophecy.
While the major-party race for the White House has been the subject of broad media... more