Billions are spent on presidential campaigns which offer little to voters however doesn't this truly reduce a presidential campaign down to irrelevance? Jeb Bush will be the GOP puppet no matter what the voters want. Presidential Debate Commission Inc The League of Women Voters served as a genuinely nonpartisan presidential debate sponsor from 1976 until 1984. The League courageously included popular independent candidates and prohibited the major-party campaigns from manipulating debate formats. In 1980, for example, the League invited independent candidate John B. Anderson to participate in a presidential debate, even though President Jimmy Carter adamantly refused to debate him. Rather than acquiesce to the President’s objections, the League hosted a debate between Anderson and Republican nominee Ronald Reagan that attracted over 55 million viewers.

 Four years later, the Republican and Democratic campaigns vetoed 68 of the moderators proposed by the League to pose questions during the first debate. The League held a press conference and lambasted the campaigns for having "totally abused" the process. As a result of the ensuing public outcry, the campaigns accepted all of the League's proposed moderators for the next debate. And in 1988, the George Bush and Michael Dukakis campaigns drafted the first secret debate contract -- a "Memorandum of Understanding" that dictated who could participate and under what conditions. The League refused to implement the contract and issued a blistering press release, stating that "the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter." It is precisely because the League had the courage to resist the demands of the major-party candidates that the CPD was created. The Republican and Democratic parties would not tolerate a debate sponsor that insisted on challenging formats or the inclusion of third-party candidates. In 1986, the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee ratified an agreement "for the parties to take over presidential debates." In 1987, the chairs of the Republican and Democratic parties incorporated the CPD. In 1988, the CPD seized control of the presidential debates from the League and has sponsored every presidential debate since. http://www.opendebates.org/theissue/whatisthecdp.html https://www.ouramericainitiative.com/presidential-debate-commission.html
