The first is smaller but probably irreversible: geographical imbalance. Not one of the four sites that the nonprofit Commission on Presidential Debates has chosen for the campaign debates is west of the Mississippi. They are Boston (Oct. 3), Winston-Salem, N.C. (Oct. 11), and St. Louis (Oct. 17) for the presidential debates and Danville, Ky., on Oct. 5 for the potential veeps.

Debates tend to take on the flavor of the place where they're held. The West has particular perspectives on Far East trade, immigration and the environment -- not to mention matters dear to Silicon Valley. These may not be raised unless the venue is changed -- unlikely at this late date.

The second mistake is more serious but still remediable: the apparent exclusion of any third-party candidate.

Green Party candidate Ralph Nader deserves a place at the podium. His, like other third parties in the American system, stands a remote chance of winning the presidency. (You can blame the Founding Fathers, in part, for that: They designed a government favoring two parties, not a parliamentary system encouraging many.)

But Nader expresses a loud and articulate voice of dissent from Republicans and Democrats on important issues that Texas Gov. George Bush and Vice President Al Gore are minimizing or ignoring, as they compete most feverishly for undecided moderate votes in mid-America.

Nader takes contrary positions on trade and the North American Free Trade Agreement, corporate ``greed'' and influence on politics, universal health care and the role of the Federal Reserve. (He'd sack Alan Greenspan if he could.)

His stance on some of these issues is wrong, but he'd expand the political dialogue in expounding his views. And Nader's presence would guarantee that the debate would be lively, with more focus on substance than, for lack of disagreement, on style.

But the debates commission, which has organized the debates since 1988, is placing an arbitrary and unrealistic burden on third parties. Under its rules, a candidate must achieve at least an average of 15 percent of the vote in the most recent presidential polls. That's triple the 5 percent threshold that third parties need to qualify for federal election subsidies. If Minnesota had had a similar barrier, Gov. Jesse Ventura would have been have been excluded from debates that gave him the exposure vital to propelling him to victory.

Nader and Ventura run strong among those alienated by politics, especially young people who tend not to vote -- and thus aren't counted in polls using only ``likely voters.'' Nader has been getting between 4 and 8 percent in the polls, but even that level may be critical in determining whether Bush or Gore wins in states like California.

Democrats fear Nader as a spoiler who might siphon enough votes from Gore to deny him the presidency. We share that concern, but that's no justification for excluding him. We'd leave it up to Gore to make the case against a symbolic or wasted vote, and we'd trust voters to make the right judgment.

The case for including Pat Buchanan in the debates is weaker. He's been polling much smaller numbers than Nader, and the Reform Party he professes to represent is deeply split over his candidacy.

The debates commission could justify dropping Nader in a subsequent debate if his post-poll numbers didn't rise. But its rules should be flexible enough to include him initially. The dialogue this fall would be richer and the differences between all of the candidates made sharper and clearer by his presence.

© 2000 Mercury Center

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