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The American
Two-Party System

(Illustration credit: Robb Allen)

The inane schedule of primaries and conventions that American voters look forward to in the next year will be, I predict, the proverbial nail in the coffin of America's two-party system.

It started two years ago when the Democrats decided they wanted to shake up New Hampshire's and Iowa's status as the vetting ground for the next ruler of the free world. Lured by union money and a Hispanic demographic, the DNC decided that Nevada would be granted permission by the party to be one of the "early primary" states. Not as early as Iowa and New Hampshire, but up there with South Carolina.

That decision sparked an avalanche of states moving up their primaries, lead by Carl Levin of Michigan who, for some unknown reason, has a vendetta against New Hampshire. At his urging, Michigan decided to have its primary on January 15th. However, because setting their primary that early goes against DNC rules, none of the delegates from Michigan will be seated at next year's Democratic convention, and all of the Democratic candidates have chosen not to be listed on the Michigan ballot. Similarly, there will be no delegates from Florida at the convention either, because they moved up their primary in violation of DNC rules.

Even more bizarre is that the republicans are not boycotting Michigan and will appear on the ballot and are campaigning there. Go figure.

I won't even go near the subject of the Electoral College, but it is clear that these inner-party struggles will ultimately have a deleterious impact on American democracy. If voters vote and see that the people they voted for aren't included in the process, they probably won't vote again. If they get fed up with the long drawn-out campaign cycle, they'll lose interest and won't participate.

And even more interesting is the activity apparent in the various social media. From the Huffington Post to YouTube to Facebook to MySpace to Twitter, this is where our future leaders are winning and losing the hearts and minds of a generation. Ron Paul, a candidate which the polls, the party and the media have completely ignored, enjoys a huge margin of support over his rivals Giuliani and Romney. On YouTube and Facebook, Barack Obama's support is double that of Hillary Clinton.

We won't know for another few weeks whether social media popularity translates into votes, but it's clear that a new chapter in American politics is being written this year. If you follow our suggestion to listen more to what people are saying, you'll get a very different sense of where it's going than by listening to the DNC or RNC. -KDP

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