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Quote by: Nono If so, that "mainstream" has spontaneously been flowing ever more to the right over the past 40 years. Is this true?

To a point... the "mainstream" traditionally ebbs and flows from left to right, and I'd say within the last 30 years. Recall that Nixon, while certainly a rightward lurch in response to Johnson, was politically more liberal than some democrats today. And after 30 years of rightward swing, methinks we're starting to swing back to the left. The religious right is in retreat, the GOP in disarray, Reaganism a quaint ideal and baby boomers are increasingly concerned about liberal issues like Social Security, Healthcare, the environment, etc.

Quote by: Nono Or is it rather that the electoral system has been pumped so full of money that legislators are in the pocket of Big Money? If they want to get re-elected that is.

Methinks politicians have ALWAYS been in the pockets of money, although with the growth of the Internet, I wonder how much 'BIG' money is any more significant that just lots of 'little' money. I know that over the last couple of years I've contributed more cash to campaigns than during the rest of my life combined, although that still only adds up to a few thousand dollars, and that's been mostly because the candidates and the party have been bugging me more than ever before... that and my desire to get rid of Boy George.

However, if your point is that third parties can't compete because they don't have access to the money, there's probably a lot of truth to that. Money goes to where it thinks it can win.

But I also think there's a chicken and egg aspect to it -- is it that 3rd parties can't get people interested because they don't have the money, or is it they can't get the money because nobody's interested? Ron Paul took his untraditional Libertarian message into the mainstream as part of the Republican Party, but although a small fringe following went berserk and flooded Paul with cash, mainstream Americans weren't buying his message.... in direct contradiction to your implication that cash translates into votes. And with his ultra-free-market message, you'd think corporate America would have lept on Paul's bandwagon.

Quote by: Nono Meanwhile, the media (the public's source of information) is owned by an ever-more-concentrated group representing (you guessed it) Big Money.

Very true, but their self interest seems to be in pandering to America's lowest common denominators, not influencing politics... except for FAUX News. Besides, kindly note that this years' Presidential race has featured far more debates, featuring more candidates, than I've ever seen before. Sure, this may be a temporary reaction to what America has been through over the last 7 years, but it certainly seems to have presented a far broader political spectrum than usual... from the Socialist Kuninich thru centrists Hillary and Rudy, thru Reaganist Thompson, Religious Right Huckabee and Libertarian Paul.

All of them had their chances to pitch America during the debtes and raise cash.

Quote by: Nono Where does this leave the concept of "representation"?

America is represented overwhelmingly by the mainstream middle. That's just the way it is. As far as money, America in 1800 was a country run by wealthy gentlemen farmers, Tories and Whigs, then by industrialist robber barons, Democrats and Republicans. When was it never thus? When has a 3rd party candidate ever won the U.S. Presidency? The fringes have representation, just in numbers and influence comparable to their numbers they represent and never with enough numbers to elect someone to the branch limited to only one elected representative... the President.

Quote by: Nono Luckier than where? Equatorial Guinea? Agreed! But these checks on greed, naked ambition, lust for power, etc. have certainly failed miserably in the last two presidential elections, which were clearly stolen by the Bushite Republicans.

Even a good system doesn't guarantee perfection. Bad Presidents happen. Bush was just that absolute wrong guy who showed up at the right place at the right time (for him), and his problem wasn't so much one of ambition and greed... it was those things combined with monumental incompetence.

Quote by: Chasosabar Hillary is the only candidate who decided to get choked up over losing 1 state in a nation of 50. I don't understand your apparent opinion that just because someone can maintain their composure in public somehow this means that they don't have emotions in private and are a "monster".

Makes as much sense as assuming that getting choked up for half a minute (I didn't see any tears), when answering a question of how all this affects her personally, is a sign of weakness. Besides, unlike any election campaign in American history, the candidates have been going none-stop since last spring, with 10 more months to go. It's gotta be grueling. I sure as hell couldn't do it.

And her choking up aside, who's answered that question better? People on these boards have sometimes asked why I'm so passionately opposed to Bush's war. Because this is MY COUNTRY, my home, and I get really pissed off watching some cowboy clown rip it apart through arrogant, ignorant, reckless negligence.

Besides, there's a rule in advertising: you can't make the same pitch as your competition when they make it first, even if the same pitch legitimately applies to your product. All gasoline is detergent, but only one can be the "Detergent Gasoline"... the guys who claimed it first. So although it might actually benefit some of the other candidates to be seen as emotionally invested in what they're doing, sorry, can't dip in that well twice without appearing calculated.

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