On Feb. 1, congressional Democrats led by Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin introduced a bill that, if approved, would end viable third-party competition in races for the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Constitution does not mandate a two-party system, and indeed the nation was founded on the premise of multiple parties all with equal opportunity to run candidates for office. But over the years, possibly to contain the number of candidates that must be bribed in order to bypass the result of any election, the nation has evolved to a two-party system to which many special advantages are already given.
Chief among these are the primary elections, which by law automatically carry the candidates from the Republicans and Democrats, while other parties must go through a lengthy and costly petition process to get their names onto the ballot, in the process using up their already inferior financial resources.
I like the idea of shutting off large private contributions (especially from lobbying groups operating for a foreign government), but if public funds are to be made available to candidates, they should be equally available to ALL candidates.
via WRH blog in other words, Coke or Pepsi!
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