Well, it's election time, and you know what that means - not much. Mid-term elections traditionally (at least recently traditionally) have a low turnout, even lower then already dismal Presidential Elections. Lazyness contributes as much as frustration with a two-party system voting choice of either the Fire or the Frying Pan, but the end result is that over 90% of Incumbants are re-elected, and considering the job they are doing that's terrible news.

We direly need change. Both parties have failed the American people miserably, and the Democrats are no better than the Republicans, in many cases they are worse. But the vast majority of incumbants have consistantly acted as Presidential rubber-stamps, voted down raising the minimum-wage while increasing their own pay every year for ten years, refused to take a hard line against China, refused to shut down the Southern Border, the list goes on.

So, what to do? Personally, I think we desperately need a third, and maybe even fourth and fifth, party because I don't like being forced to choose between Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber. Maybe we should do away with parties in general, and elect Candidates based on what they indivdually stand for, and have officials make decisions based on what they feel is right, rather than the Party Line.

Unfortunately it is too late for forming new parties or nominating new candidates this election, so all that those of us who are fed up with both parties can do is vote independant or third party (generally Libertarian or Greens, neither of whom are perfect) where possible, and against incumbants where it is not. Obviously, there are some cases, and if you are up to date on the situation in your local politics you should be able to judge if this is the case, where the incumbant does not deserve to be thrown out. Those cases are rare, but make your own call.

Certainly I don't advocate voting out a staunch Border Security advocate in favour of another Francine Busby (On June 2, five days before the 50th District of California's congressional election, Busby was recorded telling a largely Hispanic group that "You can all help--you don't need papers for voting, you don't need to be a registered voter to help.") for example, but if neither candidate seems that great, at least throwing out the incumbant sends a strong message to the new guy: get it right, or you're out in four years.

I believe that no matter the results of this election, the job that is done by this government will be so poor, that four years from now people will be alot more receptive to a third party. There's already more support for the concept now than would have seemed conceivable five, ten years ago, and that is encouraging news. Here, www.vis.org is a list of candidates running in this election, by state, which shows both the main party candidates and the Independants and third-partiers, along with campagin website where available and financial information about the candidates.