Your parkinsonism getting the best of you there with the four posts?!?
I think you may be on to something with the multitude of parties suggestion. I would guess that a candidate would not have to make as many personal and political compromises. These days, it seems that the candidate has to tailor him/herself to the party and not vis versa.
I suppose you do run the risk of having fewer people represented by a potential candidate. With 10 parties on the national scale, the winner would probably garner fewer (percentage wise) of the electorate. If the person with the most votes wins, then with 10 parties it would be theoretically possible to win with around 11 percent of the vote!!!
I think that these multiple parties would probably make us “feel better” (i.e. “more power to the people”…)…but the ACTUAL power would stay in the hands of the few (or the “two” as it’s now instituted…)
All “Third Parties” tend to do now is take away votes from one of the major Party candidates.
There would litterally have to be a complete Paradigm shift from election laws to the make-up and rules of Congress for there to be any significant change…
I think that these multiple parties would probably make us “feel better” (i.e. “more power to the people”…)…but the ACTUAL power would stay in the hands of the few (or the “two” as it’s now instituted…)
All “Third Parties” tend to do now is take away votes from one of the major Party candidates.
There would litterally have to be a complete Paradigm shift from election laws to the make-up and rules of Congress for there to be any significant change…
I just don’t see that happening…
Mufasa[/quote]
Good point.
I think part of the problem is that our founding fathers set up a system which is difficult to change!
Our system isn’t set up for coalition governments as a parliamentary system is, and that makes a big difference. We’ve had several situations in our history when one party imploded – but a second major party sprouted up to take its place, rather than two or three parties.
Generally in our system small minorities are completely shut out, and have little opportunity to be involved, or to be brokers on issues between the major parties. I think there are lots of reasons for that, but I think one of the biggest is that third parties don’t seem to be able to take hold on the state level and build some constituency.
Watch the immigration issue carefully though – it has the potential to cause some major political realignment, especially as restriction and enforcement have support at the grass roots levels on both sides of the aisle, whereas the leaders on both sides of the aisle don’t seem to support either.