Other candidates
Though the likelihood of Sen. Bernie Sanders being the Democratic nominee and facing off against Pres. Donald Trump in November appears less likely than when Gabe Kahn wrote “The lesser of two nominees” (Feb. 20), those two men were never going to be his only choices in the general election.
There will be a Libertarian candidate, a Green candidate, and perhaps others. Voters need to take a more serious look at such candidates. Writing them off as “wasted votes” is how we get such poor nominees from the Democrats and Republicans.
Both parties operate from the perspective that voters are so conditioned to a duopoly that they will vote for their respective candidates, no matter how lacking they are. Furthermore, the Commission on Presidential Debates is a bipartisan organization whose main purpose is to keep other candidates off the debate stage by setting prohibitive criteria for participation. The only legitimate criterion is being on the ballot in enough states to theoretically win a majority in the Electoral College.
If voters en masse insist on debate inclusion and vote for alternative candidates, we might just get a president we could be proud of, and force the Democrats and Republicans to give us better nominees in the future.
Kenneth Kaplan
Parsippany-Troy Hills
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