Mr. MARTY KAPLAN (Director of the Norman Lear Center, University of Southern California): Where's the league of women voters when we need them?</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: Day to Day contributor, Marty Kaplan, a former Democratic speech writer.  It is time to rest control of the presidential debate from the networks, he says and give it back to the people.</s>Mr. MARTY KAPLAN (Director of the Norman Lear Center, University of Southern California): The networks and the national press love their (unintelligible), their gates, their controversies, their heat.  They, alas, are not the grown-ups in the political process.  The grown-ups are the voters, who lamely in the mind of the political class, are troubled by the war, the economy, and boring stuff like that.  The first 10 people in a phone book, could do a better job of asking candidates questions that voters care about.  There is no freaking reason in the world, to grant the networks a rotating monopoly on staffing, and broadcasting these debates.  The whole media-political system we now suffer from, is tilted entirely toward trivial combat, pathetic niggling over words, ridiculous sideshows, and inside baseball.  Now that we know how awful it can be, are we really powerless to stop it from continuing to waste our time, and turning our political process into a third-rate version of a condescending reality show?  Sorry.  I just got to get a grip on this bitter thing.</s>ALEX CHADWICK, host: Marty Kaplan, Director of the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California.  These remarks first appeared on his blog, at The Huffington Post.
Commentator Marty Kaplan of the Huffington Post says it's time to give control of presidential debates back to the voters. He says he misses the League of Women Voters.