V.                  The Two-Party System

1.       A two-party system is rather rare in the world, as many other nations have multi-party systems, but in the U.S. the Republicans and Democrats have balanced each other rather well, even reviving after having been called politically dead (Dem.’s in the 1st third of the century and Rep.’s in 1930s & 60s).

                                                               i.      On the state level, though, there is rarely balance (South used to be REALLY Democratic while New England and the Dakotas were Republican), but parties are less competitive here than in presidential contests or the national level.

2.       This may be because of the system of elections, since most states are based on a plurality, or winner-take-all system, rather than a majority system where candidates must get more than half the vote, rather than just the most votes.

                                                               i.      In France, if no one gets the majority, run-off elections are held until someone wins.

                                                             ii.      The biggest example of this is the Electoral System, because only two states don’t use the plurality system, and as a result, a person who didn’t get more than half the votes in a state still can win all the votes of that state (see Clinton in Missouri in 1992 or the 2000 Election).

                                                            iii.      In England, proportional representation is used: if a party gets 35% of the vote, its members sit in 35% of the Parliament seats, and this system has been tried in the U.S.

                                                            iv.      To win the presidency (huge prize), a party must have broad support and broad ideas; only one third party has ever won the presidency—the 1860 Republicans, but by then, they had virtually replaced the dying Whigs anyway.

3.       This may also be because of the fact that, most of the time, voters agree broadly enough to coalesce into two wide coalitions.

                                                               i.      There hasn’t been a successful group that has objected to the U.S. economic system, the non-monarchial way of U.S. life, or the privatization of religion.

4.       Despite racial or sectional differences, the system has prevailed, which means that the way it’s run is very important; pluralities make it useless for anyone to create, say, an all-Black or all-White national party to take away votes from one of the two major parties.

5.       For many years, state laws made it very difficult for a third party to get onto a presidential ballot (i.e. George Wallace originally had to collect 443,000 signatures to get on), but gradually, these laws were ruled unconstitutional or repealed.