Burning Matter: The Two Party Country

The two party system does not work anymore--and maybe it never did. Even the first president of the US, George Washington thought that two parties only "...serves to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration....agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one....against another....it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption...thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another."

I often think that America might be "too big" for just two parties. Regardless, this two-party system fueled by special interest money is not working. And more Americans than ever are coming to that same conclusion. According to a May 2010 WSJ poll, "Nearly one in three, 31%, said the two-party system is broken and that a third party would be good for the country. It’s the highest mark for that question, which has been asked in 2007, 1997, and 1995 (with 29%, 28% and 27% respectively)." 
http://bit.ly/cbQS9Z

 This topic is far too big for a simple post. But watching the mid-term election campaigns confirms, to me at least, that we have become what Washington feared--a country with two parties whose base concern is to win power by the lowest means possible by setting up ill-founded jealousy, false alarms and animosity against each other.

Our elections have steadily devolved into a popularity contest between two battled hardened special interest groups: Democrats and Republicans.

• Neither are interested in good governance, but in fact waste billions of collective dollars to maintain power bases.
• Neither is interested in true election and campaign reform.
• Neither wants to lose the special interest and lobbyist money and perks and trips and...and....and...
• Neither wants to stop ego-driven infighting

In fact, what we have is exactly what Washington warned us against. So what do we do? Well, I'm going to dig deeper into this topic. I feel I need to because of the near complete lack of choice in the California governor race (an entrenched life time political family son vs. a Silicon Valley billionaire with a political whim). At least Jerry Brown is an idealist--that's probably the best I can say.