What to do about moderator cut off

I received an email from John Pudner, Executive Director of Take Back Our Republic, pointing out how the Univision moderator cut off campaign finance debate last night. (Email appended below.)

Senator Sanders has been working the campaign finance issue about as hard as can be.

Campaign finance reformers presumably want to push the issue to the fore during this time of extraordinarily intense public attention to the Presidential election.

Campaign finance reformers presumably don't have funds to do TV or radio advertising or mailings by U.S. mail. Also, there are probably few phone bankers or door to door canvassers on behalf of campaign finance reform.

Leaders in the movement get some publicity for the issue on talk shows, in news articles, and by public speaking.

Democracy Spring and Democracy Awakening are busy readying their April actions. Democracy Spring has 2390 pledges of participation.

Rootstrikers has an online petition for telling the Presidential candidates to get serious about fighting big money in politics. The petition has been signed by 219,201 people.

Campaign finance reformers are using social media to publicize their issue. This include thunderclaps and Twitter storms.

I am advocating tweeting banks, such as OHIOANS: Help Sen. Sanders fix Congress. Yesterday, I tweeted to users of the #feelthebern hashtag this tweet:

Tweet for OHIOANS, on March 15th, to help Senator Sanders fix Congress. …http://2016candidatesdeclarations.blogspot.com/2016/03/ohioans-help-sen-sanders-fix-congress.html …

Today, I expect to tweet to users of #CNNdebate hashtag this tweet:

Dear Mr. Trump, please help our country fix Congress by endorsing DeclareForDemocracy. http://2016candidatesdeclarations.blogspot.com/2016/02/dear-mr-trump.html

All of the above is not a whole lot of injecting our issue into the intense Presidential election situation, but it seems to be the best we can do.


[John Pudner's email]

From: John Pudner, Executive Director Take Back Our Republic <johnp@takeback.org>
Date: Wed, Mar 9, 2016 at 10:56 PM
Subject: Debate Wrap: Univision Moderator Cuts off Campaign Finance Debate
To: rdshattuck@gmail.com
MIAMI - Many complain about politicians not coming up with real solutions for money in politics, but the debate here tonight was an example of the moderator being the problem.
Univision debate moderator Jorge Ramos certainly asked hard-hitting questions on other issues, but when campaign finance reform came up in tonight’s debate here he did the opposite – repeatedly cutting off the debate.
Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton were in a good back and forth over campaign finance reform around 10 pm. We are not concerned over who was winning the exchange, but the fact that they were talking about campaign finance reform. Certainly the logical follow-up questions, was, “What would you do about campaign finance reform?”
Instead Ramos said, “We're going to move on to the next question.” Leading to boos from the crowd. After some push, he finally relented slightly to say, “You have 30 seconds, Senator.” Then after Sanders hit on campaign finance reform a little more, he did say, “Yes. Just a few seconds,” then “We're going to move on.” Then after a few more seconds referencing “corporate welfare,” Ramos insisted campaign finance reform be dropped with, “OK, next question. I want to continue with the issue of trust.”
The crowd booed again. Certainly it is fair to say the Presidential candidates from both parties are almost universally identifying campaign finance as an issue but not laying out their solutions, but … if media representatives are going to try to end the conversation when the candidates do discuss it, then the issues will never be addressed.
As the Republicans take center stage tonight in the same city, we would love moderators to encourage rather than discourage conversation of ways to address money in politics. “Can we make politicians allow banks to verify credit card confirmation on contributions to be sure they are really coming from Americans?” “Should government contractors be required to disclose political contributions before receiving billions in our tax dollars?” “Should we enable small donors to participate in the process by getting a tax credit for small contributions?”
Hopefully the chance for this city to host back-to-back debates including all six Presidential candidates leads to some solutions. - John Pudner, www.takeback.org