Well, I read the Op-Ed and the author makes no suggestion as to how a third party solution would be able to accomplish anything that the two current political parties can not accomplish; short of an overwhelming majority over both current political parties, which I don't believe will happen for a number of reasons.

Having moved from the U.S. and having lived in Canada for the past 27 years, I can tell you the affect of having more than a two party system - as you may know, Canada has three major political parties along with a number of minor political parties.

Political parties mostly divide themselves in the U.S. and Canada along conservative vs. liberal lines. When a third party is introduced, it will either be conservative or liberal and will divide support for its political affiliation with the other unfortunate party, and neither divided party will be able to defeat its opposition. Therefore, the will of the people will always be thwarted under such a situation. For example, here in Canada, the liberal consensus is vested in two liberal parties, while the conservative party is unified. Under the present situation, the liberals can not defeat the conservatives, even though the combined vote for the two liberal parties could easily win. Thus the the will of the majority is thwarted by the two liberal parties, and now support is growing for a coalition between the two liberal parties in Canada going into another possible election next year.

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• Time to scrap the Republicrats? - BRhaco, Tue Oct 5 08:22:59 2010
• RE: Time to scrap the Republicrats? - webwheeler, Tue Oct 5 09:19:59 2010
• RE: Time to scrap the Republicrats? - BRhaco, Tue Oct 5 11:49:57 2010
• RE: Time to scrap the Republicrats? - webwheeler, Tue Oct 5 12:22:06 2010
• RE: Time to scrap the Republicrats? - Jaykis, Sun Oct 10 11:21:39 2010