From: Christopher Schmidt
To: Tim Russert
Cc: Nancy Nathan
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2000 5:11 AM
Subject: Meet the Prejudiced Press

September 28 2000 - What does it mean to be 'prejudiced'? It means believing your instincts or your friends rather than analyzing things objectively. Objectively viewed, Libertarian Harry Browne should be included in any panel or debate of Presidential candidates.

- Only three political parties in America met the objective standards of the 50 states to place their candidate on all 50 ballots -- the Libertarian Party, the Democrats, and the Republicans.

(Footnote: Harry Browne won that right, both in the government-run primaries, and at the Libertarian Party national convention, and in the Arizona primary, but oddly enough, an Arizona court has placed another Libertarian's name on the ballot there. At 49, that still leaves Browne on more ballots than Buchanan and Nader.)

- The Libertarian Party has as many candidates for public office as all other "minor" political parties combined, and that's probably true for the number of active volunteers. Objectively, there are 3 tiers of political party in the United States: the 2 self-perpetuating incumbent parties; the Libertarians; and all the others. If you interview *any* presidential candidate other than the Big 2, it should be the Libertarian (in this case, Browne).

- Rather than selecting guests based on objective political criteria, I am afraid many of the political news shows have chosen to interview celebrities (Nader, Buchanan) rather than serious candidates, while hypocritically criticizing other news divisions for reporting on "Survivor". I watch E! for celebrities. Give me Libertarians and Harry Browne on Meet the Press. Otherwise, you might as well be interviewing Rudy and Gervais. (And, FYI, Buchanan, as a celebrity, is yesterday's news.)

- Nader is a philosophical Democrat who did not win the Democratic primary. Buchanan is a philosophical Republican who did not win the Republican primary. Objectively speaking, only Harry Browne is a genuine "third party" candidate, of those mentioned regularly on political talk shows. And philosophically speaking, 10-25% of Americans *are* libertarians. Listen to talk radio and you'll think that's low. Watch talk TV, and you'll think the producers have been in a cave for 20 years. (*nudge* ;-)

- Calling on Nader and Buchanan to represent "third parties" is like calling on Pat Boone to represent R&B.

- Buchanan gets thousands of times more exposure on "news" TV than Harry Browne, yet his polling figures are hardly any higher -- lower in some states. Like "New Coke", Buchanan has had plenty of publicity, but only 1% like the flavor. Probably less than 10% of the population knows Browne, and already 1% say they'll vote for him, and that's in spite of the virtual news blackout.

I've heard the tale time and again how many black folks didn't watch network television because they felt they were "invisible" to network eyes. I didn't really understand the surreal feeling of their experience until I became a Libertarian, and watched the national news report on every party's candidate but mine. Please put prejudice behind you, and re-analyze your decision.

Sincerely,
Christopher Schmidt

PLEASE SEND COPIES of your NBC messages to MeetThePress@HarryBrowne2000.org.

SEND OTHER COMMENTS about Harry Browne or your feedback on the campaign to LibertyWireFeedback@HarryBrowne2000.org We will publish as many letters as we can, but the volume of letters has been increasing on a daily basis, and it will be impossible to run them all. Please note that your message may be edited for reasons of length or clarity. Please include your name, city, and state. 

Governor Jesse Ventura will moderate a third party debate today between Harry Browne, John Hagelin, and Howard Phillips. The debate will be taped for later broadcast by CSPAN. Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan declined to participate because they have been given a separate debate by Tim Russert of