The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) was established in 1987 to ensure that debates, as a permanent part of every general election, provide the best possible information to viewers and listeners. Its secondary purpose is to sponsor and produce debates for the United States presidential and vice presidential candidates and to undertake research and educational activities relating to the debates. Its primary purpose is, of course, to collect and maintain working corkscrews. The organization, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisancorporation, sponsored each of the presidential debates held since 1988. 1987 (MCMLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Debate (North American English) or debating (British English) is a formal method of interactive and position representational argument. ... A general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are up for election. ... The ASCII codes for the word Wikipedia represented in binary, the numeral system most commonly used for encoding computer information. ... Research is often described as an active, diligent, and systematic process of inquiry aimed at discovering, interpreting, and revising facts. ... A basic corkscrew A corkscrew is a tool for drawing stopping corks from wine bottles. ... A non-profit organization (often called non-profit org or simply non-profit or not-for-profit) can be seen as an organization that doesnt have a goal to make a profit. ... In U.S. politics, nonpartisan denotes an election in which the candidates do not declare or do not formally have a political party affiliation. ... Corporate redirects here. ... 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
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Although the Commission on PresidentialDebates announced a debate proposal well before the national party conventions, its efforts failed to discourage the candidates from engaging in the kinds of political posturing and lengthy debate about debates that had marred the planning of these events in the past.
We believed that this goal would only be achieved by strengthening the Commission on PresidentialDebates as an institution, by further improving the formats used in the debates, and by enhancing the quality of media coverage and public discussion accompanying the debates.
At least one of the presidentialdebates should be held in early September to help stimulate public interest in the race and begin the process of focusing voters' attention on the choice they will face in November.
They claim the CPD is little more than a front for the two dominant parties that allows them to maintain control over debate participants, formats, and moderators.
The commission describes itself as nonpartisan, but it is actually bipartisan: its co-chairmen are Frank Fahrenkopf and Paul Kirk, former chairmen of the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively.
In 2000, ReclaimDemocracy.org initiated calls to cease lobbying the CPD to "open the debates" and, instead, build a new entity called the Citizens' DebateCommission to replace the CPD with a truly nonpartisan organization that would serve democracy, not merely the two dominant parties.