End 2 Party System

The 2 party system. Democrats and Republicans. This has to go. It’s broken. It just doesn’t work anymore. We have politicians in office for so long they’ve become completely detached from the average citizens wants and needs. We need a viable 3 party.

Campaign Spending

To that end, I would like to see a limit on campaign spending. There are limits on how much an individual or corporation can contribute, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about overall spending. Period. No loop holes. Same amount of spending for all the candidates, Again, Period. This is controversial I know. The ‘little guy’ isn’t going to have the financial backing of the major parties. How do we address that gap? Is it a lack of experience raising money? If our democracy is important enough, then this should be discussed. Too often candidates drop out of races because they don’t have enough money. For some candidates, that may be for the best. Other times we may be removing an ideal candidate from the ballot because they don’t have enough money to continue. I certainly won’t pretend to have all the answers, but money plays a huge role in politics and we need to devise something to open up the races to viable 3rd party candidates.

Media Coverage

Another suggestion would be to allow equal amount of media coverage. Just these two changes would level the playing field for 3rd party candidates who traditionally do not have the spending power of the 2 major parties. How do we know if there’s a viable 3rd party candidate if they don’t have or can’t afford a platform to get their message out.

Participation in Presidential Debates

Finally, ALL participants should be able to participate in the presidential debates. Currently the requirements to participate favor the Democrats and Republicans and it becomes very difficult for a 3rd party candidate to get included. A large part of that reason are the lack of financial resources and media coverage as stated above.