I agree with you. The system needs a change. You might as well not vote because voting on a 3rd party is basically just throwing away your vote. I'm only going to vote because I'm going to be voting for the people on the ballot that are local and that I actually know in depth.

I don't believe people actually think that. It is just the way the system is set up and they are just going along with what they always know.

I feel bad for all the young voters that got all caught up in the "hype and change" thing, who are now disenfranchised because for the first time in their life, they became engaged with more than their own bubble and were sorely disappointed.
I can see there being a lot less turn-out in 2016 because of this.
On the other hand, Democrats do like to have their gimmicks. Personally, I wouldn't vote for a female president JUST because she's female, although I could see a lot of folks doing that because "hey, social progress!". I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to convince the young population to join forces against the "war on women" and toppling the evil Republicans who want dirty air and dirty water and old people to have to eat cat food to survive...

I think young voters should hold their heads high and be positive. Don't worry. Politicians will think of a way to use you for their own purposes, and you'll be walking to that booth under whatever pretense, with a smile on your face and bounce in your step. Ready to do your part in the next big step to nowhere.

I just think it shows you how stupid your average voter is. I mean running on a campaign of "Change" in a bad economy is pretty much a failsafe way of getting free votes. I mean who is going to say no to that. Obama had pretty much every black person I know in the bag for the obvious reason of being black himself. Honestly it disgusts me how shallow and narrow minded/misinformed your average voter is. It ALMOST makes me thank the electoral college.

Thank the electoral college for what exactly?

The electoral college is a huge part of the problem and what needs to be changed.

I didn't vote for Obama with both elections. I just knew he would take my state so it was no point in voting for him. Actually I think I voted Republican in 2008 for ****s and giggles. I knew a Repub wouldn't take NY.

^I agree, the electoral college just makes the situation worse. It's bad enough that anyone who doesn't want to vote one of the major parties basically has no influence, but the electoral college makes it so that in addition to this, anyone living in a state with a clear majority has no influence, aside from those who support the party in power.

I also agree that voters are uninformed, I think that's basically a reflection of our culture in general. I think it probably has something to do with us moving from a print based culture to a TV and Web based culture. The media is making the appeal-to-the-lowest-common-denominator strategy the most successful one for procuring public support.



Politicians basically know how to utilize this strategy to win power through the image they project more so than through having clear and well thought out ideas on how to approach issues.

They're also more interested in upholding their party's image than they are in working toward any sort of pragmatic progress. Look at all of the childish drama that has been surrounding the budget/deficit issue for the past few years.

ya look at other countries with more than 2 maor parties


its all a collusion thing where repubs and democrats have different ideas but agree on keepin their interests atop everything else so theres no real option. they are the only ones who want the system that we currently have and also the ones in power of controlling it so it will never change. i have voted in the past base don social issues cause i dont trust anyone to actually fgo and do what they say they will as far as plans. maybe thats dumb but like i said im done voting. i will still make fun of candidates tho

Hillary Clinton will be the next president. Among the GOP, it will come down to Rand Paul and Chris Christie. Paul seems to me to be too much of an ideologue. Too hung up on political philosophies that he can't wait to start implementing whether they have any chance of working or not. He may not be that way but that is how he comes across and I think it scares people. That his name reminds one irrepressibly of Ayn Rand and her Objectivism doesn't help him. I think the country has had enough of ideologues when Bush let his administration be overrun by neocon idiots who said stupid s-hit like we won't have to regulate Wall Street because they'll police themselves and a lean, lightly-armed, stripped down army is the way to win wars.

Christie I actually like but, let's face it, his weight is a problem. I mean, this cat could VERY WELL die in office so you have to look VERY CAREFULLY at who his running mate is if he gets the nod. Chances are, he'll be a RW nutjob in an attempt to get enough support from both factions of the GOP (two different parties for all intents and purposes) to make them look semi-cohesive (which they are not). If Christie dies in office, this other guy will be president and we stand a very real chance of that happening. So I don't see Christie as a viable candidate.

I don't think either one can beat Hillary Clinton. I think even most people who normally wouldn't vote for her to save her from hell will vote for her because the GOP is just that bad.

It's not changing it for the better that concerns me. I do know for certain that a candidate can change things for the worse and that is FAR MORE important to me. When Bush II won, I knew a lot of people who were really angry. I kept asking, "I'm not happy about it but what ever really changes? How much can this guy change things?" Boy, did I eat those words. I realize now, a US president can lie through his teeth to the entire world and embroil it in a useless, illegal war that put us in debt to China and destabilized the Middle East and he can walk away from it scot-free and leave his successor to clean up his mess.

He can feed the world a toxic cake made from mortgages so fraudulent they ruined entire countries' economies including his own and never have to explain himself. I don't believe for a second that Al Gore, for all his faults, would ever have pulled anything like that. I don't believe any other president would have been stupid enough to pull that.

So while a president isn't likely to make things a whole lot better any time soon, he sure as hell can make them far worse super fast and that's more than enough to get me to get off my ass and vote.

The Electoral College is all sorts of wrong.

Although it's a step up from the system we have here. We don't even get to put in an indirect vote for the Prime Minister.

Well, that was certainly Obama's saving grace in 2012. We'll just have to see if the GOP can't get their **** together in the next 3 years. I think they actually do realize they need to at the very least work on their image.

What about Marco Rubio? He's got everything the Republican party needs for a re-branding: intelligent, articulate, young, and Hispanic.