Third-party candidates Patrick J. Buchanan and Ralph Nader are demanding to participate in the presidential debates.  Unfortunately for the Reform and Green parties respectively, neither candidate polls above five percent nationally - far less than the 15% threshold set by the Commission on Presidential Debates. 

This poor showing doesn't mean they have to end their Quixotic White House quests.  It does mean they lack the legitimacy to share the stage with the Republican and Democratic candidates: Texas Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore.

Neither Nader nor Buchanan has ever held high office, which is a major reason voters aren't backing them.  The scenario that, given a chance in the debates, they will fire silver bullets into the major party campaigns is highly, highly unlikely.

"Our role is not to jump start your campaign and all of a sudden make you competitive," said Paul Kirk Jr., co-chairman of the Commission on Presidential Debates. "It's not a perfect analogy, but in sports, people understand you don't make the playoffs unless you start to accumulate enough wins to show you're competitive."

Buchanan and Nader charge that the commission's 15% threshold shuts out third-party candidates, but history proves differently.  That figure isn't unrealistic for a legitimate contender outside the two major parties.  In 1968, 1980 and 1992 we had third-party candidates who polled above that number during the campaign - and remember, even with that level of support, none of them came anywhere near winning the general election.

The next man in the White House will almost certainly be named Gore or Bush.  Buchanan and Nader simply don't have a chance of beating them in the fight for the presidency, so they shouldn't have a chance to duke it out with them in the presidential debates.