Cash and parry

Excluded from the TV debates, the Libertarians challenge the campaign-finance law. One possible result: getting the media out of the debate business.

Don't Quote Me by Dan Kennedy

It is an election-season ritual as recurrent as baby-kissing and negative campaigning: the wail of independent candidates who've been excluded from televised debates.

Now Dean Cook, the Libertarian candidate for governor, has filed a novel challenge based on an arcane section of the campaign-finance law. According to Cook, television stations that keep him out of debates they help organize are, in effect, making illegal contributions of free time to the two major-party candidates -- Acting Governor Paul Cellucci, the Republican, and Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, the Democrat.

"In essence, we disagree with the campaign-finance law," says Cook. "But the Republicans and Democrats who crafted the law should obey it. Maybe then they'll realize how ridiculous this is."

Let's face it: even if Dean Cook were granted full access to the debates, spent several hundred thousand dollars on TV ads, and were treated as an equal of Cellucci and Harshbarger on the pages of the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald every day, he still wouldn't be elected governor on November 3.

But by challenging his exclusion on such substantive grounds, Cook has called into question one of the more pernicious institutions on the Massachusetts political landscape: the so-called media consortium, which has arrogated unto itself the power to decide who shall be heard and who shall be excluded from the all-important television debates.

The consortium -- comprising the Globe, the Herald, Channels 2, 4, 5, and 7, and New England Cable News -- first got together in 1994 in order to force a reluctant Ted Kennedy to the debate podium. Certainly the public benefited from that. But the consortium has since taken on an exclusionary cast, banning conservative independent Susan Gallagher from all nine US Senate debates in 1996 and keeping Cook out of this year's gubernatorial debates despite the Libertarians' decades-old history of political activism. "The Libertarians have proven their viability and strength," says Massachusetts League of Women Voters president Nancy Carapezza, who believes Cook should be included in the debates.

Political editors Doug Bailey (the Globe) and Joe Sciacca (the Herald) have both cited Cook's utter unelectability as the prime reason for leaving him off the podium. And there is some merit to that argument. The problem comes when seven major news organizations act as one to enforce that view.

Cook's complaint has nothing to do with the old Federal Communications Commission's rules about equal time, rules that are pretty much toothless after nearly two decades of presidents hostile to the federal government's traditional regulatory role. Indeed, independent congressional candidate Anthony Schinella, who calls Cook's strategy "absolutely brilliant," says candidates for federal office have no similar recourse.

Instead, Cook is relying on a state law that says a "discount or rebate not available to other candidates for the same office" amounts to an "in kind" contribution. The law also states that broadcast time falls under that provision.

And as that notable third-party activist Ross Perot would say, here's the beauty part: Cook's trap would ensnare only those TV stations that assume the dual role of both organizing and broadcasting debates. Channels 25 and 56, which are not part of the consortium, are free to cover these debates without incurring any liability. But consortium members, by broadcasting events they helped stage, violate the $500 limit on legal in-kind contributions. At root, then, Cook's challenge would force news organizations to stop conspiring with each other and to get out of the debate-organizing business.

Candy Altman, news director of WCVB-TV (Channel 5), argues that the consortium is needed because the media must act as a whole in order to force candidates who may not wish to debate to come to the table. "We certainly have more clout as a larger group," she says. "The power of the consortium forces them to debate." She adds that even if a news organization belongs to the consortium, it is still free to sponsor debates on its own -- as, in fact, the Herald and several TV stations have done.

As an example of a media organization acting outside the purview of the consortium, consider WLVI-TV (Channel 56). Political reporter Jon Keller works on a case-by-case basis when booking candidates for informal debates on his panel show, Keller at Large: sometimes he invites independents; sometimes he doesn't. "It is a very difficult call," he says.

That it is. And a subjective one, too. Far better that such decisions not be made by a monolithic news media.

This isn't an argument for including all candidates in every debate. The public has a right to hear as much as possible from candidates with a genuine chance of winning; the attention span for politics is already shrinking, and a let's-invite-everyone mentality would only worsen that trend.

But it would certainly be worthwhile if Cook forced the media consortium to break up, which would air out the process and encourage a variety of organizations to sponsor debates. No doubt some would invite just the major-party candidates, and some would invite everyone. That's the way it should be. After all, Cellucci and Harshbarger are debating three times before Election Day. Given their substance-free first encounter, can anyone argue that democracy would be harmed if Cook were to participate at least once?

Several weeks ago the Libertarians mocked state spending-limits laws by announcing they would spend no more than $19.5 billion this fall. The debate challenge, though, could amount to more than a PR stunt. Cook's complaint serves the useful purpose of reminding people that laws have consequences. For instance, the Libertarians need to win 3 percent of the vote on Election Day in order to gain major-party status and thus be guaranteed a place on the 2000 ballot. Yet their exclusion from the debates will make it much more difficult for that to happen.

Unfortunately, Cook's challenge comes too late to make any difference in the 1998 campaign: the state's Office of Campaign and Political Finance won't rule on it until after November 3. "Our rulings are not intended to affect elections," is the explanation offered by OCPF spokesman Denis Kennedy. He's also skeptical of Cook's argument, noting that the law Cook cites is meant to regulate political advertising, not debates. Yet Cook argues persuasively that the staged events from which he's been excluded are essentially the same as free advertising for the two major-party candidates. If the OCPF ruling goes against him, he adds, the Libertarian Party plans to file a lawsuit.

There are good reasons for making it difficult to build a third party. But there are no good reasons for making it impossible. The media, of all institutions, shouldn't contribute to that.

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Dan Kennedy's work can be accessed from his Web site: http://www.shore.net/~dkennedy

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Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy[a]phx.com

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Articles from July 24, 1997 & before can be accessed here

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