“We have, for better and worse, a two-party system. A vote for a third party is wasted.”
I would disagree in this regard...
We have a multi-party system inside each of the two parties.
On the R side, we have everything from the John Birch Society to the Libertarians.
When a party runs a candidate that is not acceptable to the majority of those across the full spectrum,
the disaffected have strong temptation to support a candidate outside the party that best represents their
interests. To assume that just because someone has an R by there name means they share an equal passion for
every issue, is I think, a false assumption. The party is not monolithic in regards to interests.
THAT is where we are with Romney. He represents weakly, SOME fiscal ideas, weakly, SOME (but not all) social ideas,
and comes with a history of representing the opposite side of most of what many of us are committed to.
It is no surprise that he is not a much-loved candidate. It won’t be a surprise when some significant percentage
of our side goes fishing that day in November...
You are quite correct. I was being overly simplistic.
Our system operates on a coalition basis, just like a parliamentary system.
The only real difference is that in our system we usually put together the coalitions within the parties rather than between the parties.