Why three (or four or five or...) is better than two

At the same time the current primaries may just be the most exciting of modern times, it also makes it clear that the U.S., despite what many political scientists claim, is indeed a two-party, two-candidate country. And it will be this year more than ever.

It is true: since 1854, when the Republican party was officially created, democrats and republicans have always faced some sort of competition in the presidential elections. Under the flag of whigs, greenbacks, prohibitionists, socialists and others, many have tried to fight the two-party system in this country. And yet, they've all failed.

In the end, the way the political system is currently structured, a candidate that doesn't belong to one of the two major parties in the country has virtually as much chance of becoming president as Dennis Kucinich ever had, after or before dropping out of the race.

First, due to the political power that democrats and republicans have. Allies, as Obama and Clinton have showed, are extremely important, especially in places where voters may be in doubt or well divided. By having a famous political figure by his or her side, a candidate can convince a whole population to follow suit. Aside from the semi-celebrity of Ralph Nader, a third candidate would have almost no chance to find a famous political ally, aside from one or two traitors to the Reds or Blues.

Second, due to pure and simple economics. Different from Romney and Bloomberg, most candidates can't even dream of funding a campaign mostly based on their own money. And an independent candidate wouldn't even dream of amassing the contributions that candidates from the two main parties do.

The third point relates directly to the primaries, and is specially highlighted by the current one: due to their system of nominations, democrats and republicans get an extremely unfair publicity compared to other candidates. While media outlets tend to be balanced between covering democrats and republicans, they're at the same time elevating them to a status that will never be achieved by others.

It's free advertising at its maximum: turn the TV at night, and you will hear, no doubt, about McCain, Huckabee, Obama and Clinton (after all, if you show one, you have to show the other). But what about other (even possible) candidates from other parties?

No one knows who they are, and no one ever will, until it's too late. By late August or early September, virtually most voters will already have made up their minds on which main candidate to pick. And independent candidates won't ever have the chance to gain as much exposure as their mainstream competitors did, even as they battled for their own nomination.

The more debates we have, the more time parties take to define who their main candidate is, the more citizens will know who they are, and the better the chances they will pick one of them, and not an independent. Ralph Nader, a staple of independents, took home less than 0.4 percent of all votes in 2004. All independents together took less than one percent of all votes cast in that election. And there were 15 of them, although no one seems to know that.

This way, the party nomination process becomes a circus where the performers gain, one way or the other, per show. The longer the process takes, the more they will gain, and the least possible it'll be for anyone else to enter the arena.

For those that claim the U.S. is a truly democratic country with a multi-party system, this election may prove that, in times where caucuses and primaries are headline news and presidential debates are primetime material, the same thing that promotes choice may just as well be killing it.