siriuskase's Journal: More than 2 political parties? No way

Not if Duverger's Law is true. Mr. Duverger observed back in the 1940's that in a winner takes all sort of Electoral System, voters will learn not to waste their votes on candidates that don't have a chance, they will vote for somone who has a chance and, as likely as not, vote against the candidate they like the least. Even though the electorate doesn't like overtly negative compaining by the candidates themselves, pundits and others with a soapbox can attract a lot of interest by defining the issues and the candidates in negative terms.The fact that both candidates are usually decent people with different strengths and priorities tends to get lost in the mud. Failure gets more attention than success even though both are merely evidence which can be examined to determine how they will carry out future situations.

So what choice does the voter have? With each candidate defined by the opposition in extremist terms, a voter with a superficial understanding of the candidates will most likely be attracted to the candidate who seems the least extreme. The incentive is for the candidate to prove that he is closer to the middle than his opponent.