THIS JUST IN (and by "just" I mean 25 years ago): Presidential debates have been a dog-and-pony show orchestrated by collusion between the two (read: one) party through the last SEVEN campaign seasons. Before that they were genuinely organized by a nonpartisan outside entity, the League of Women Voters:
The League continued to sponsor the presidential and vice presidential debates every four years through the 1984 elections.
Following that election cycle, the Democratic and Republican national parties came together in a decision to move sponsorship of the debates under the purview of the parties.
Between 1985 and 1987 the League challenged this move and sparked widespread public debate on the matter. The LWVEF argued that a change in sponsorship that put control of the debate format in the hands of the two dominant parties would deprive voters of one of the only chances they have to see the candidates outside of their controlled campaign environment.
In 1987 the parties announced the creation of the Commission on Presidential Debates. The Commission chose LWVEF to sponsor the last presidential debate of 1988, but placed so many rules and restrictions on the possible format of the debate that the LWVEF was finally unable to agree to participate.
In a press release at the time, Nancy Neuman, then LWVUS President, stated that the League had “no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.”
The nonprofit Commission on Presidential Debates sponsored all the presidential debates since 1988 (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012). << ---
LWV
--- so in effect the Republican Party will get the moderators, format and questions it wants, and the Democratic Party will get the moderators, forums and questions
it wants, and when they appear together those will be negotiated to mutual agreement, and both of them will be able to shut out inconvenient voices they
don't want.
But that needn't affect us here at USMB where we'll continue to pretend these are two different parties.