I think the American political system has evolved into a creature that no one understands. The third party is important during the early stages of the election game. That is the time to really get behind those parties and push hard. When you do that the monoliths that are the Democratic and Republican parties take notice of what issues interest the public. They will then include a version of those interests in their platforms.

Once you get past that point, however, there is no way out. The next president will come from either the Democratic or the Republican party. Nobody else stands a snowball's chance. By voting for a third party you are skewing the election in directions you may not want it to go.

As an example: Gore has an environmental agenda, more or less. Bush does not. Nader does. When the Nader votes sink Gore and Bush wins who will be happy? And if the Republicans hold on to their control of the Congress who will there be to stand against the rape of the land?

Now, my own views aside, why is there a strong argument about the environment in this campaign? It is because enough people stood up in the early months of the election process and spoke their piece and cast their votes about the environment. The political machine noted the strong support for that issue and included it in their platforms. They may not really give a hoot about it but they sure as hell want those votes.

Now, if enough votes go to Nader and Gore loses this election we will get the message across that the envornment is important but we will have 4 years to regret it and wait for our chance to recitfy the error. Then we will be trying to unseat an incumbent president.

Not easy under the best of circumstances. Let's learn the lesson Perot taught us and vote for the big parties no matter how distastefull.