SR VII

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 Chris H wrote:

 birdwithteeth11 wrote:

 KoS wrote:

I hate the two party system.
Different shades of sh*t is what it is.

Yeah, pretty much. And then it's not like we have alternatives since we've effectively eliminated the chances for a third party to get a foothold in our political system. Washington was right; political parties are pretty much just "factions" and don't do us any good. Sure, not everyone's going to agree on every issue, but we don't need to throw parties into the mix.

I tend to semi-disagree...it's not impossible to get a decent third party operation up and running due to the two-party system, the ballot restrictions are mostly to blame. It takes so much time and money to get on the ballots these days that you basically have no time left to campagin. Had Perot, Anderson or even Nader been reserved a spot on the ballot the outcomes might have been tipped more slightly in their favor. Now I'm not saying I think it is likely that Nader can win the White house, but hey, Perot beat Bush in Maine and Clinton in Alaska so it is entirely possible that we can see 3rd party politicians in major seats in this country. Wasn't Jesse Ventura Reform party anyways?

That's kind of what I was referring to. Technically it's not impossible, and if the next few years become bad enough I could see it happening, but like you said, the cost of political campaigns is so high these days that it's really, really hard to run a successful third-party campaign. However, two years from now, the situation could very well be different depending on how the Obama administration ends up working out.