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Gov candidate Grace Ross excluded—old boys' Mass. debate was a flop
Supporters of the Green-Rainbow Party candidate, Grace Ross, came out to Harvard's Kennedy School of Government on May 18, to protest her exclusion from the gubernatorial debate.
This year’s debate sponsors, including MassINC, the Boston Globe, New England Cable News and WBUR, cooked up phony criteria to silence third party candidates and keep the range of political discourse controlled and narrow.
Jill Stein was among the thirty or so Ross supporters on hand. This year she is the Green-Rainbow candidate for Secretary of the Comonwealth.
She recalled how in 2002, when she was the Green Party’s candidate, she was excluded from debates. There were protesters then too. One of them in a debate audience yelled out that Stein should be included. Mitt Romney said he agreed and Shannon O'Brien reluctantly acquiesced.
Thus the final debate in 2002 was opened to the Greens, Libertarians, and an independent. Dr. Stein was rated as the winner of that debate by many in the mainstream media.
After the first debate of 2006, no one seemed to feel that there had been a winner—only losers. The audience trudged out into the night stifling yawns.
Th questions at the May 18th debate focused on jobs, the economy, and the cost of living. As Grace Ross answered the questions outside of the Kennedy School, it was déjà vu all over again.