The Nation: Gary Johnson and Jill Stein should debate, and maybe Romney shouldn't

In a particularly interesting article, The Nation columnist John Nichols makes two compelling points about the exclusion of third-party candidates from public debates.

First, after having listed Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and Virgil Goode as the leading alternative candidates, he points out that using electability as a standard is a two-edged sword:

There’s not much chance that any of the three will be elected. But at this point, there’s not as much chance as there once was that Romney will be elected. It would be absurd to disqualify Romney on the grounds that he’s falling behind in the polls, just as it is absurd to disqualify candidates who are on the ballot but have not gotten the exposure that might run their numbers up.

Then there is this embarrassing note:

Only the most crudely authoritarian states erect the sort of barriers that the United States maintains to entry into the debates by so-called “minor-party” candidates.

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