Mary, why would you assume that it is necessary to have political parties before one can have a manageable (and limited) roster of official candidates nominated for an election?

It's an unfounded assumption you make there, based on habit, I would think. Because you're used to having political parties, you assume they are the only possible public mechanism capable of selecting candidates. They're not. Not by any means. Any number of alternative methods could be devised, some of them far less susceptible to corruption than the political party, which exists mainly to feather its own nest and perpetuate its grip on power.

Les, the people with the same sort of ideas, as you put it, would have plenty of opportunity to discuss those ideas effectively in a non-partisan Congress or Assembly and in public meetings, both before, during, and after an election involving no political parties. It's been done, it's being done (in thousands of city coucils, for example), and it can be done any time people get the idea to do it.

The political party is a totally arbitrary, completely unnecessary, and very troublesome factor in a democratic system. It needs a lot of money to be effective and win an election. To get a lot of money, it does favours for certain people. Thence stems much of the corruption.