Paul Krugman nails it: Why we're on DEMOCRATIC Underground

[cascadiance]

68. When the two party system has been corrupted by money and special interest influence,...

... then how do you change it? Some of us try to do it from the inside, and in this environment that potentially has less down side, but has been more difficult to accomplish with the barriers in front of us today. Those trying to do so from outside the party are blamed for our party's bending of it's original principles to get money from the wealthy donor class and the corruption of the party's agenda of a result of that, that makes it so that they feel they have to work outside the party to be heard.

I know some like Sanders as a third party try to work within the system more to not have bad consequences result from someone like him running as a third party candidate for president, but I'm sure he and many out there would love to be able to vote for him as a 1st choice and the Democratic party candidate a second choice that would still have either him or the Democrat (like Clinton) win the election over a Republican if we had IRV rules in place. If he ran as a third party candidate, there would be a lot more opportunity for him to voice stances on issues that wouldn't get heard if he had to be a Democratic party candidate. Now I think if he does run, he'll be prepared to join the Democratic Party to not cause adverse consequences, but this is a systemic problem to blame and the two major parties embracing corruption that highlights and makes that systemic problem worse that is the major issue, not an issue to blame just the third party candidates on who become "spoilers" in such races.