2nd Oregon Gubernatorial Debate, October 4, 2018


KOBI-TV has posted yesterday's 2nd Oregon Gubernatorial Debate, October 4, 2018 on YouTube so I've linked it below. Patrick Starnes was not allowed to participate because for this debate he was required to have 10% support in the polls. This is one of the standard ploys used to keep third party candidates out of the debates so as to make sure they can't win an election. It's basically a catch-22 wherein the candidate is not well known because their campaign doesn't get press coverage to attract people and money to the campaign. This results in a low showing in the polls, which keeps them out of debates that could potentially raise their level of support above 10%. The arbitrary 10% level is used because most new 3rd party candidates initially have less than 10% support. Thus the two party duopoly persists in service to the corporations, oligarchs, and other sources of big money.


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