Excluding Moulton, others from debates is undemocratic

Published in Salem News, Jul 30, 2019

To the editor:

Re: “No midsummer night’s debate for Moulton” (Salem News, July 19):

It is an absolute travesty for a party calling itself “Democratic” to arbitrarily shut out the voices of five major candidates running for its presidential nomination at such an early stage in the primary contest.

These candidates deserve a fair playing field to get their messages out; but more importantly, we the voters deserve a chance to hear from them without interference from the DNC. Our democratic republic is healthiest with a well-informed electorate. We don’t need gatekeepers like the DNC using biased and error-prone polling to decide which candidates are worthy of consideration. Let the voters decide!

The anti-democratic exclusion of a combat veteran and congressman like Seth Moulton, along with former Navy admiral and congressman Joe Sestak, begs the question, “What were they fighting for?”

The exclusion of other public servants like former senator Mike Gravel; Miramar, Florida, Mayor Wayne Messam; and philanthropist Tom Steyer leaves a rotten taste in one’s mouth. Perhaps Ralph Nader was right when he said our political system was spoiled to its core.

Eli Beckerman

Newton

The writer is the founder of Open the Debates, a cross-partisan group working to open up the political debates of our nation.