i wouldnt call myself a democrat anymore. i actually believe pretty heavily in the free market, though not to the extent of ron paul.

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I agree. This country is so friggin 2 dimensional. We our the largest this and the largest that but yet 2 parties that have a really hard time distinguishing themselves from each other sometimes.

There are dinky little countries in the world with like 7 parties or something. They're prolly not democracies but you get my drift.

I'm drunk right now so I'll say we need 5 more parties, npi.

In Iraq's first "election" a while ago they had over a couple hundred I think. The problem with getting another party started come election time is this mindset (which I am guilty of): I like that third guy a lot but if I vote for him I'll just be taking votes away from the guy who is more likely to beat the guy I don't like. So I'll go with the one of the two that I like more so the guy I really don't like doesn't win.

That's the problem with it. That's part of how Bush won. There was the Democratic party, then there was the third party running a man that almost won the democratic nomination that took a lot of the Dems votes.

Instant runoff voting would pretty much guarantee the existence of a few more viable parties.

You gotta fight... for your right... to parrrrrrrrrty!

Seriously, the problem is that the voting system we have today is screwed up when it comes to a (singular) third party. Either a third party is a spoiler in a close election (e.g. Nader for Gore, Wallace for Humphrey) or marginalizes the winner (e.g. Perot with Clinton).

Of course, this voting system crap is hard stuff. Instant runoff voting sounds great, but produces two-party extremes in practice. Let's summarize the third party success in executive elections of countries using IRV:

Not every country has an executive election. Parliamentary systems don't allow for a popular vote of the executive.