The REAL way to shake up the political landscape is NOT to vote Green, Libertarian, etc. At least, not directly.

What we need is to push for voting schemes that increase pressure on the big two, whomever those two may be. That meanas Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) or Condorcet or some similar method.

It also means you voted for someone that you believe in, rather than forcing you to vote outside of your conscience. Bush or Kerry? No thanks, I’d rather make a statement than have ANY amount of responsibility for that particular mess. There was no way that I could spin it so that either of them were “what I want”. And the reality showed that the “winner” hasn’t been what people want either.

The two people I’ve spoken to who vote for “the independent,” do so purely because they are dissatisfied with both the major parties, and not because they particularly align with the independent candidate’s point of view. I found this rather surprising, and this is what led me to write this piece.

Voters in the US have been conditioned to believe that a third-party vote is a “wasted” vote. They have been conditioned to believe that the ONLY way to make your vote count is to choose the lesser of 2 evils. Hell, the majority of voters in the US don’t do their research and wind up voting for the incumbant or the one whose campaign was the least odious.

It doesn’t matter how many major political parties there are, the real chore is in teaching voters how to do independent research and think for themselves. It’s an incredibly daunting task.

Ron Paul is very smart to run as a public even though he is a libertarian. The libertarian party just cannot get the coverage and the 2 parties have a lock on the system. They try very hard to exclude everyone else.

If you are very wealthy then you can hire your own canvassers and run under the “Independent” ticket. But I don’t know of a case where this has occurred. A major costs of a third Party is the ballots access because they have to pay for the people to go out and get the thousands upon thousands of signatures. If these laws were loosened then a third party could compete in the political landscape. Of course the other major costs are airtime and other advertising, but all parties are treated pretty equally in this area because you’re not dealing with the Government. Of course there are other areas where third Parties are screwed in America. And that’s access to media. We used to have a set of laws called “The Fairness Doctrine” where a TV station would have to air other politicians if one politician were able to be on a program. This was pretty good at keeping the airwaves sorta balanced. Bush and Clinton completely buggered that up and now the main stream media doesn’t even have to recognize that a particular Party or person is even alive. Since the FD is gone we’ve seen the rise of people like O’Reily, Limbaugh, Buchanan and others who spew all kinds of crap without having to tell another side to the story.

At least, that’s what I gathered from so many news networks harping about how many tens-of-millions each “major” candidate has raised.

Here’s to hoping enough people back straight-shooters like Dr. Paul.

So, (only) two big parties is just “how it has become?” How is that fair?