|
Back
|
Hawkins Criticizes NY1 for Refusing Tasini-Clinton Debate
|
Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for US Senate, said today that NY1 News refusal to allow the anti-war challenger in the Democratic Party to debate the pro-war Hillary Clinton was "another shot in the kidneys to democracy in America."
"It seems that increasingly the only criteria applied to the media in determining which candidates to cover is money. Either a candidate must be personally wealthy like Bloomberg or Golisano or they must be willing to placate corporate campaign contributors. What is most amazing here is the media has provided immense coverage to long-shot challenger Tom Suozzi in his sputtering race in the Democratic gubernatorial primary but ignores Jonathan Tasini, despite the fact that he is actually polling at higher levels," noted Hawkins. "And one just needs to look to our neighboring state of Connecticut to see what happens when the voters are told that an anti-war candidate is challenging a pro-war incumbent."
"The media only wants to cover horse races and celebrity gossip, dismissing discussion of issues like war, health care, and campaign financing as irrelevant except of course for their own posturing on their editorial pages. While the media often points out the failures of our political leadership, they seldom acknowledge their own pivotal role in suppressing democracy in our country," added Hawkins.
Hawkins said he supported legislation to mandate that ballot qualified candidates participate in a series of public debates as a condition for office. He called for a system of voluntary public campaign financing that in addition to equal allotments of public campaign financing to qualified candidates would also require broadcast media to provide equal allotments of airtime for all ballot-qualified candidates.
"When our country was first founded, participation in public debates was an integral part of the election process. Unfortunately, over the last two centuries, the rest of the world has improved on our democratic revolution while we have moved backwards, to the point that we are one of the less democratic countries among those that profess to have a democratic system of elections," added Hawkins.
Hawkins noted that Jessie Ventura became Governor of Minnesota primarily because both major parties concluded that he would harm their opponents more and allowed him in the debates at a point that he was 8% in the polls. Each debate cycle allowed him to double his support until he won the |
| |
 *Website by David Doonan, Labor Donated to Hawkins for Senate Campaign* |
|
|
