The Free & Equal Elections Foundation made history during the 2008 elections when it hosted the first nationally televised presidential debate featuring independent, third-party candidates, an event moderated by author and journalist Chris Hedges.

Four years later, more than 20 million people viewed Free & Equal's 2012 debates online, which were moderated by Larry King. Now, the foundation aims to bring together young people from a wide array of political beliefs and backgrounds toward one common goal: releasing American politics from the grip of the two-party electoral system.

Ahead of the United We Stand festival it is hosting in October, Free & Equal founder Christina Tobin spoke with Occupy.com about her vision for encouraging young people disillusioned with government to take back power by running independent campaigns for local office in the coming election cycles.

CARL GIBSON: What is the Free & Equal Elections Foundation? How did it get started?

CHRISTINA TOBIN: It all began when my dad ran for governor of Illinois in 1998 as a libertarian candidate. I saw firsthand the corrupt nature of the electoral system and how it’s totally dominated by the two-party duopoly. Democrats and Republicans only needed 5,000 signatures to get on the ballot, but third-party candidates needed 25,000 signatures. My dad’s campaign got 60,000 signatures, but the Daley political machine in Chicago, the same one that elected Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama, booted my dad off the ballot even though he qualified.

I’ve been fighting for electoral reform since then, and started the Free & Equal foundation with the goal of getting more candidates from all independent parties on the ballot. I sold a business I was running for $250,000, and used all of that money to invest in this goal of having true reform of our electoral system where all elections are free and equal, to candidates of all political parties.

CG: What are Free & Equal’s goals? What would you say is the ultimate aim of this organization?

CT: The biggest goal is getting all parties on the ballot, no matter the ideology. We want to take back the debates from the Commission on Presidential Debates, which is a sham organization founded by leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties made to shut out independent voices.

The system wants us to give up. What Free & Equal wants people to do is fight for what's right. The party system should fade away. Money in politics should fade away. The two-party system would rather crash than let anyone else take over. We want people to rise above the two-party system and take our government back. We need a mass uprising of honest people — solution-based, led by youth who are most open-minded — and run for local offices beginning in 2014 to replace democrats and republicans alike. There's nothing wrong with recognizing there's something wrong with the system, but we need to help train and inspire people to rise up and take leadership.

CG: So what are you hoping to accomplish with the United We Stand festival happening next month in Los Angeles, and the resulting bus tour?

CT: I think it was Ron Paul who said, "For everyone who wants to bring about revolutionary change, two things are required. We need youth and we need music." So our goal right now is putting together the United We Stand festival on October 12. We’ve got a lot of great music. Public Enemy will be there, several founding members of the Wu-Tang Clan are performing.

We’ll have great speakers like Dr. Jill Stein, Governor Gary Johnson, and we’ve got thousands of politically-aware young people demanding something better than the status quo. More than anything, I want a new generation of young leaders to get inspired to take their government back, starting at the local level.

CG: Some people in the Occupy movement would probably agree that running local independent political campaigns is a good way to take power. But there’s also an anarchist sect within the movement that wants to disavow all involvement in the current political system. What would you say to that anarchist sect?

CT: This isn’t about any particular political party, but in rising above and beyond the two-party duopoly. We need to be able to put trust back in the electoral system. I believe that in order to build this trust, given how many people have broken trust in movements, it's very clear that political parties do not work.

Free & Equal will never become a party. I've seen firsthand that as the party becomes bigger, there are people at the top who want power, because the party organization attracts power-hungry people. A good example is last year, when we had Larry King moderating the third party debates, [and] Gary Johnson and the Libertarian party got the most exposure ever — every single state party, from my understanding, covered the debate and hosted watch parties. There were over 20 million watching, and it was trending on twitter. But the national libertarian party, as an organization, didn’t once mention the debate.

CG: So would you say this isn’t an all-partisan effort, but a trans-partisan effort?

CT: The constitution had no mention of parties. The founding fathers missed one thing: the power of social media and technology. Young people are the force to be reckoned with due to this. They're the gamechangers. Free & Equal and the others we work with are going to create our legacy for many generations and foreseeably forever, resulting in greater integrity in our political system, shifting our government back to its original intent.

CG: I’ve spoken with some friends in the Occupy movement in New York who were there at the very beginning, and they once hosted an Occupy vs. Tea Party debate, and ended up agreeing on a lot of issues. Now there’s talk of forging a coalition between Occupy and the Tea Party on those issues where we agree. Do you see a chance for there to be a vast coalition built around unifying issues, like breaking up the big banks, abolishing the surveillance and police state, and ending the drug war?

CT: Yes, all of those issues are exactly what Free & Equal is trying to do, to bring together young people from all sides of the political spectrum. The Snowden issue is really exposing the system. The Bradley Manning trial was another big moment. And you look at all the ammo being bought by the Department of Homeland Security, the police forces that are militarizing, and you see the system recognizes that the people are becoming more aware of what they’re doing and uniting against it.

More people are becoming aware of the Federal Reserve, a cartel of private bankers that serves as the world’s central bank and has enslaved so many countries with debt. There’s the issue of money in politics, which shows that money is just a tool, and money can be used either to prop up the existing system, or turn people away from that system. The issues being brought to the fore are the issues that are bringing us all together.

CG: Is there anything else you want to add?

CT: There is so much going into the United We Stand festival. We’re on the verge of really making this huge. But Free & Equal is a nonprofit. I want to mention that we were offered a half million dollar donation from a corporation, and we turned it down, because we won’t be bought or compromised by corporate power, like the two parties have. We’ve raised a lot of money from individual donors, but honestly, we need some more resources. The festival will already cost well over $250,000 or even $350,000, but selling out is not an option. Giving up is not an option. Every bit of support we can get is best.

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