Chapotraphouse

Well under Democracy with American Characteristics, political parties are private corporations. Participation in the presidential debates is also run by a private corporation, who declared early on

After studying the election process in 1985, the bipartisan National Commission on Elections recommended "[t]urning over the sponsorship of presidential debates to the two major parties".[3] The CPD was established in 1987 by the chairmen of the Democratic and Republican Parties to "take control of the presidential debates".[3] The commission was staffed by members from the two parties and chaired by the heads of the Democratic and Republican parties, Paul G. Kirk and Frank Fahrenkopf.[3] At a 1987 press conference announcing the commission's creation, Fahrenkopf said that the commission was not likely to include third-party candidates in debates, and Kirk said he personally believed they should be excluded from the debates.[3]

The heads of the CPD are usually ex-leaders of the two corporations that make up the Democratic and Republican parties, and when those corporations want to bypass the CPD, they just negotiate with different corporations.

In May 2024, the Biden and Trump campaigns struck a deal to circumvent the CPD and participate in two debates (on CNN on June 27 and ABC on September 10), breaking a longstanding tradition of debates organized under the auspices of the CPD,[10] throwing the future of the CPD into doubt.