MasterP said:
If our 3rd parties weren’t narrowly tailored to the interests of a single issue they would be able to compete. It’s not BS, people don’t vote solely for tree hugging or “independent”/anti-everything ideals. They vote for the party that represents them best, minus a few minorities who vote for their interests but that’s a different issue.
BS. The reason we don’t get third party involvement is because the republicans and democrats make it nearly impossible for a third party to compete. If you want to run for office as a republican or democrat , you pay a small fee and they throw your name up on the ballot (I am referring to smaller, local offices obviously). If you are running as a third party its not that easy. You have to (a) pay a larger fee and (
get petitions from a large number of voters just to get your name on the ballots. As for presidential candidates, they can’t get invited to participate in the debates unless they have something like 10% of the popular vote already… and if they cant get on the debate they really dont stand a chance. The system is setup to favor the red or blue even though probably 40% of americans fall somewhere in between.
Also, if you think all the third parties are “narrowly tailored to the interests of a single issue”, I suggest you take a look at the Libertarian and Constitution party platforms, they are much more robust than the Republican or Democratic party platforms.