Is the two party system outdated?

"outdated" is being gentle...

"dangerous"... "destructive"... "infiltrated"... "usurped"... "controlled"...

these are more appropriate words.

Yes, it creates extremes, where the two parties are simply trying to give away benefits to various groups of people: rich, poor, business owners, old, religious, minority, homeowners, etc.

This national giveaway contest has resulted in a national debt of $10,000,000,000.00, and the U.S. Dollar has gone from a value of $1.16 in Euros when Bush was first elected to $0.73 today, so everything you buy is much more expensive because of that debt, even before we try to pay it off.

Think a tax cut saves you money? Guess again. Only a few ultra rich folks (like the Bush family) actually came out ahead. With the country now deeply in debt, the rest of us will pay more for everything for the rest of our lives.

It would be nice to have a moderate party that would take reasonable middle ground on most issues. The word "conservative" used to mean "prone to conserve". It would be nice to have an option that would allow us to preserve the country's financial health, be much more conservative on defense spending, move much more cautiously into wars (and only with global allies sharing the costs and risks), conserve our environment and national resources (we'll need the ANWR reserves much more when oil is $300-1000 per barrel than we do now), and not compete to develop expensive programs that cater to small slices of the American population.

Just broken, when it gives no true choice on ANY of the major issues.

I'm voting third party for the first time in my life, and only wish I'd started doing that a couple of elections ago.

I'd say so. Logically, there should be more parties because people are so diverse. But ideally, there should only be one party because, minor differences aside, we are pretty much the same and should join together with similar hopes and goals for our country.

☼

No. It prevents minority vote presidents. Just imagine having 10 candidates, and the winner has a decisive margin of victory, winning 20% of the total vote, meaning 5 times the people voted against the winner than voted for him. That kind of president has zero moral authority.