[Dead Corpse]

A handful? Most States require third party candidates to get tens of thousands. Now multiply that by all 50 States.

What kind of debate is it where only two people get up on stage, using tax payer money, and talk past each other for an hour and a half?

[AmishDude]

They agree to it. If Bush doesn't want to debate, guess what? No debate. If Kerry doesn't want to debate, guess what? No debate. I wouldn't blame them. Debates are stupid political theater designed for people who only want to pay attention for about two weeks.

The precious third party candidates can have their own silly debate if they want. All of them can agree to a forum and CSpan will gleefully cover it.

[WildTurkey]

A handful? Most States require third party candidates to get tens of thousands. Now multiply that by all 50 States.

Ten's implies more than one, so at a minimun, two, or 20,000. Multiply 20k times 50 and you have One million. Now how many votes did the LP get in 2000? Quite a few less than a million. That would imply that there is an organized effort by another party to ensure the LP is on the ballot.