Actually, LH... 5 parties is a lot better than 2 ... Makes folks do that coilition stuff... You know, talk to each other and make deals... The US is outta the compromising and deal making business... Take a super majority (60%) to get anything done that is positive (or negative)...
That is a serious problem 'cause these super majorities only come around about every 40 years or so and then we get stuff like Medicare or Civil Rights and then we go another 40 years of gridlock...
The problem here is that we have progressives who wiggle these super majorities once a generation and put thru stuff that, yeah, tries to redistribute the wealth back to the working class... The recent health care reform bill is one of those... Then the righties get all pissed off and throw "socialism" around as if public libraries is like Stalin or Mao-ish and get the least educated all lathered up and then its another 40 years before anything else gets passed that moves the US closer toward being a civilized nation...
I guess the silver linin' is that the rednecks never quite can convince 60% of the people that their ideas make any sense so, in spite of the corporations blasting away with their propaganda, we still have at least 41% of the population that can still, ahhhh, friggin' think beyond the propaganda...
But, hey, I will be the first to admit that I am gettin' a little scared that the corportist's stars might be linin' up in a manner that they just might buyout the last remnants of what used to be a constitutional democracy and we will be revisiting Germany in 1933....
I mean, progressives that I know have always been willing to find "common ground" but the righties??? Not so... They have no interest in compromise...
So, yeah, I envy yer 5 parties... We are kinda screwed and even though there are a lot of progressives in the Dem party, there aren't enough and they don't have the micropphone...