Government Proposals Equal Time for All Candidates

About a government proposal to give equal time to all candidates running for office.

SOLUTIONS--PRACTICAL PROPOSALS AND BRAND-NEW APPROACHES TO A MULTITUDE OF PROBLEMS

GOVERNMENT

The Other Candidates

The 1980 presidential election was pretty dreary. I think that the tradition of "the lesser of two (or more) evils" hit a new low. Voter participation continued to drop. Ronald Reagan's "landslide" victory meant that 27% of the voting-age population voted for him. If the campaign had gone on for another month, I don't think anyone would have voted. What really bothered me, though, was that when I went into the voting booth, there were not three candidates on the ballot, but seven! I had never heard of four of them. All I knew about were Reagan, Carter, and Anderson--the ones who debated and were covered by the news.

There should be a law that requires all TV networks and all newspapers to give equal time to every candidate who is on the ballot. Newspapers should be forced to print a chart showing the views of all candidates on each of the major issues. And the TV networks should present all the candidates at once, answering the same questions. The candidates would be required by law to participate.

William Corman

Denver, Colo.