Craig Newmark: Open Debate Coalition: Free the Presidential debate videos

We’re experiencing a great movement towards networked, grassroots democracy, and anything citizens can do to promote that is good for the country.

The Open Debate Coalition principles mark a significant step forwards in that direction, where American citizens become a bigger part of the democratic process.

This is a “big tent” operation; rarely do we see Arianna Huffington and Newt Gingrich, Glenn Reynolds and Markos Moulitsas, agreeing on anything.

Kathleen parker

Here’s part of what we’re asking:

dear senator mccain and senator obama,

We are a coalition of people and organizations across the ideological spectrum asking you to make this year’s presidential debates more “of the people” than ever before by bringing them more fully into the Internet age. Specifically, we ask you to embrace these two “open debate” principles for the 2008 debates:

1) The presidential debates are for the benefit of the public. Therefore, the right to speak about the debates ought to be “owned” by the public, not controlled by the media.

2) “Town hall” Internet questions should be chosen by the people, not solely by the media

This is a historic election. The signers of this letter don’t agree on every issue. But we do agree that in order for Americans to make the best decision for president, we need open debates that are “of the people” in the ways described above. You have the power to make that happen, and we ask you to do so. Thank you for your willingness to take these ideas to heart. If you have any questions, please contact:

OpenDebateCoalition@gmail.com

Sincerely,

Lawrence Lessig - Professor, Stanford Law School & Founder, Center for Internet and Society Glenn Reynolds - Professor, University of Tennessee Law, and founder of Instapundit.com blog Craig Newmark - Founder, Craigslist Jimmy Wales - Founder, Wikipedia David Kralik - Director of Internet Strategy, Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions Eli Pariser - Executive Director, MoveOn.org Political Action Adam Green - Director of Strategic Campaigns, MoveOn.org Political Action Mindy Finn - Republican strategist, former Mitt Romney Online Director Patrick Ruffini - Republican consultant, Bush/Cheney 2004 eCampaign Director Arianna Huffington - Founder, Huffington Post Markos Moulitsas - Founder, DailyKos.com Jon Henke - New media consultant, including for Fred Thompson, George Allen, and Senate Republican Caucus Mike Krempasky - Founder of RedState.com Matt Stoller - Founder/Editor, OpenLeft.com James Rucker - Executive Director, ColorOfChange.org Robert Greenwald - President, BraveNewFilms Kim Gandy - President, National Organization for Women Carl Pope - Executive Director, Sierra Club Micah Sifry - Co-Founder, Personal Democracy Forum and TechPresident.com Shari Steele, Executive Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation Josh Silver - Executive Director, Free Press Carl Malamud - Founder, Public.Resource.Org Roger Hickey - Co-Director, Campaign for America’s Future

The other guys are the big deals, I’m just adding my voice.

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