Third Party Candidates

Less than two weeks remain till Election Day and restlessness is already in the air. Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, are getting anxious to cast their vote and elect the next president of the United States. You can feel this anywhere you go.

The way this election race has turned out, it would seem as if only Barack Obama and John McCain were running for president. After all, the two mainstream candidates are the only ones that ever get mentioned by the media.

If you were to ask the average citizen about Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin or Cynthia McKinney, they would probably respond to you with a blank stare. That's because the press rarely mentions these third party candidates in their own bids for the presidency. And since these candidates are never mentioned, the public doesn't even know they exist. That's unfortunate because these candidates, along with Ralph Nader, often run on a platform that benefits Americans more than those of Obama and McCain.

I find it amusing and yet, terrifying, that the majority of people voting for Obama or McCain have no idea what each stand for. They know they want someone to implement change. What they don't know is that casting their vote for either of the establishment parties will only bring about more of the same from the last eight years.

That's why I was happy to come across an article by Alain Jean-Robert that mentioned the third party candidates and discussed how they may affect the race for the presidency. If more people in the news talked about these candidates, Americans would be better informed and better able to make an intelligent decision on Election Day. Sadly, they don't, so when we swear in our next president in January 2009, prepare yourselves for more of the same.