This is an excerpted transcript of Dr. Ron paul's September 10 press conference where Paul argued that the only choices for real change given to American voters were the third party candidates. Then Ralph Nader, the Independent candidate, Cynthia McKinney, the Green party candidate and Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution party candidate spoke before the nationally televised media conference and those assembled.
Paul's statements have been revised for easier readability, but his message presumably remains as Dr. Paul intended.
A recent poll shows that the majority of American people--60% of the American people--are unhappy with their presidential choices.
If you take the total number of Americans versus the percentage who are registered to vote and the percentage who vote for a candidate, you end up electing the United States president with only 30 to 32 percent of the American people. But because Americans have been more or less conditioned to believe that the two candidates are different, and we have to vote for the lesser of two evils, half of the people who vote for president are only voting for the lesser of two evils! Therefor, only 16% of the American people are essentially saying that they actually like their candidate and they have a real choice for who they would like as president.
Yesterday I had a phone call--the first phone call that I personally received from the McCain campaign. It was a bit of a surprise to me because their request was that I endorse John McCain today.
(Laughter)
My reply was that I didn't like the idea of getting about two to three million people angry at me, but they were serious. It was a respectful call and the argument was that McCain would do a little less harm than Obama.
But we just don't need to do that anymore.
I believe it was 1988 when there was a debate going on between George Bush Sr. and Michael Dukakis. It was a debate to be hosted by the League of Women Voters, but there was a secret agreement between George Bush Sr. and Dukakis that they would dictate all the terms: They would say who could come, who the moderator was, and who had to be excluded.
When the two candidates presented these details to the League of Women Voters the League said that there was no way they would agree to the terms. In a public response, this was their statement:
"The demands of the two campaigns would perpetuate a fraud on the American voter."-
That's where we are.
Then a few years later, an organization was formed. It was called the Commission of Presidential Debates. And since that time this commission has dictated all of the rules. Guess who the chairmen are? It's a former chairmen of the Republican party and a former chairman of the Democratic party! They dictate all the rules, so therefor anybody who opposes the status quo aren't permitted to be in the debates! And that is where we are today.
This has to change. Especially if you are at the point where you believe that the two parties are essentially the same--if the majority are outside the establishment, then it's not very democratic.
The process isn't working. When you think about what we do around the world on the pretense of spreading democracy and how many people die, I think this is a tragedy. It's a tragedy that the third party candidates and those who want to improve this country, defend our principles, defend the Constitution and want to have a descent process-- are treated this way, and shut out of the debates.
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