Letter: Let third party participate

The third party candidate for president, Libertarian Gov. Gary Johnson, was deliberately excluded from the first presidential debate. He requested to be there, but was rejected.

Johnson is the only other nominee qualified to be on the ballot in all 50 states. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have “strongly unfavorable” ratings in all polls, worse than any nominee in the past 10 presidential cycles. A large percentage of voters still say they want to consider voting for someone else.

The winners of the debate were the media, which made money on it. The losers were the people, who did not get to hear from all the candidates. This is especially regrettable because the American voters are the ones responsible to hire the president, not the politicians.

Intentionally silencing nominees chosen by the people stifles democracy and blocks fairness in elections.

But, thank goodness for the internet. If you want to hear the nominees they didn’t want you to hear, go to the Libertarian Party website, lp.org, and listen to Govs. Johnson and Bill Weld on video. You will learn more in 2 minutes listening to these esteemed governors than you did while viewing 90 minutes of hot-air debate.

This story was originally published September 30, 2016 at 1:20 PM with the headline "Letter: Let third party participate."