The American election system revolves around money to an insane degree, so the only way to get elected and stay elected is to take massive donations from corporations and the rich. Even in a situation like Obama is in now, with no more elections ahead of him, the two party system means he has to keep that money coming in for his successor.

Money is considered "speech" by our Supreme Court, which means you can use it as much as you like to influence politics. If that ever changes some real change can be made to our government, but it likely never will.

But you can hardly blame that on the President. That is congress' fault, who is not without reason as much respected as Polio at the moment in the US.

Thanks. I learned years ago that I am fallible, and that I am often incorrect. I also learned that people I totally disagree with are often quite intelligent. Both of these facts combined make me much more open to new and different ideas than I once was.

I agree with the rest of your post as well. What I have noticed is that the party-faithful of both major parties in the U.S. have drifted apart, ideologically and physically, more and more over the past decade or so. They listen to different news outlets, don't socialize as much with each other, and even speak different political languages with similar sounding, but vastly different, terminology. When they do end up meeting, they often write each other off as stupid because they don't even agree with the other on basic assumptions, never mind their actual political theories.

You better check your sources, as Obamas campaign finance is vastly different from Romneys

http://www.fec.gov/disclosurep/pnational.do

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Action_Committee#2012

American politics are complicated and the influence of corporations is troubling. But they cannot "buy" elections.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/11/07/164547856/post-citizens-united-senate-snapshot-money-doesnt-guarantee-victory

The two-party system, and the media rhetoric surrounding it, is really driving us into two very divided sides. Which is a real shame.
I'm not really sure what you mean by checking sources and being refuted. Firstly those sources show the vast amount of money spoken about which influences every facet of the election. Secondly corporations count as individuals and look at the totals. Look at the split in donations, mostly either very low dollar amounts or very high, not much between.

Anyway it's all jargon, obviously. No one is "owned" but it's a term used by many to accentuate the role of buying power in the election. If you don't think candidates are afraid to piss off people with money I would respectfully disagree.

In any case, I think the greater reasons for lack of flexibility lie in the two-party system and generally being a slow to change compromise-focused system. This is often a good thing, but sometimes is a bad one.

Like anything really.

I once read in a majority voting system Hitler would have become leader two years earlier. But of course such things can't happen nowadays.

Look at Obama. Most of his money came from average joes and where donation below 200$ per pop. This was also the reason for his infamous "give me money" spam mails. He did not have the corporate backing the GOP has. The average he received per person was significantly lower than that of and GOP candidate. And that is where most of his campaign finance came from. Corporations can only really play hardball in PACs or Super PACs. Now, first of the dems are much weaker in the field than the GOP and secondly there really isn't that much proof that the PACs have as much of an influence as many first believed.

Money can win elections, out the biggest source of income for Democratic candidates, even since Howard Dean showed how to do it, was with grass root financing. Therefore, comparing Obama with Romney in terms of corporate influence is wayyyyyyy off.
Where do you get your history? Back of cereal box?

The NSDAP was the strongest party in the two 1932 elections. That meant if there would have been a nationwide plurality voting system, the NSDAP would have won. But there really isn't any nationwide plurality voting system in the world. The "majority" was against the NSDAP. Even at the hight of their democratic power it only accounted for barely 40%.

Fair enough.

I should point out I was echoing a point more than making one, but yes, you make a good rebuttal. I still think taking money more out of the equation would be a good thing.

really just think there both as bad as each other and there is no right choice, but the same can be said for all politicians no matter what country.

I probably should have phrased my post differently to emphasize that it's likely the same sort of bias which leads people to think that feminists are mostly ball busters when it's a spotlight issue.

Ron Paul has some good ideas, he will never have any mainstream support because he's seemingly incapable of compromise and has some views which some folks would regard as extreme.

I happen to agree with him completely that the Federal Reserve needs to be abolished, but I tend to think that he's way overly optimistic about what folks would do without regulations in place to keep things running smoothly.

I'm personally a civil Libertarian, which I would consider to be completely different from what I see from Libertarians in general.

TBH the issue of anarchy and fascism are probably too large to adequately address and I probably shouldn't have brought up that perception as there's no reasonable way to properly address it here.

The reason why Ron Paul has that reputation is probably less to do with his policies and more to do with what makes the press and the sorts of people that I see supporting him. It's likely a spotlight fallacy, but it's frequent enough that people prop him up in the same posts where they complain about weed being illegal and about how regulations are crushing businesses and chasing jobs over seas.

If you notice in my original post on the matter, I acknowledged that it was possibly a spotlight sampling problem. Unfortunately, the only Libertarian candidates I'm used to seeing are rather extreme. Gary Johnson is by far the most reasonable Libertarian candidate I've seen running in quite some time.

None of these third-parties have a real shot at mainstream approval because the two main parties are so broad and pander to so many groups that there is nothing left but radical fringe.

It will take a split in one of the main parties for us to have a true third any time soon. That might actually happen, given how the demographics are changing, but I doubt it. More likely Republicans will simply trade pandering to the religious right for pandering to women and Latinos.

Well, I can't imagine Christie being a candidate. He just backstabbed Romney, in Poland he'd be forced to leave his party the very next day after doing what he did.

I know nothing about Rubio. But as race is a main factor for minorities, I assume GOP has no chance to win them if they don't let Rubio run in the next campaign.

edit GOG --> GOP

Without any details all you can do is speculate. I know what I read and it is plausible. Being the strongest party, even if you don't have the majority means you will win an election based on a majority system like currently in the US. You don't need to have the most votes, just more than anybody else, which the NSDAP had.

Now prove me wrong.

GOG FOR PRESIDENT

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Oof readin back,, i see i was successfully trolled, and that my own idiocy was well illustrated. A drunk is easy mark. Yet still reading back i see points within my drunken unbound responses which i hold to in my day to day. i see nothing but tone i would change. Presentation is lacking. But at this point i care little about catering to sensibilities and "correctness". But yeah, there will be regrets for words and tone used when i'm back in the socially bound state. For now i cut i up. Unbound.. sort of. Totally free would be pointless as that would be confusion for most.