What does Mary Matalin see in that nutjob?

"My macro position," he says, "is that in 2008 there's going to be a significant third-party movement in the United States that's going to combine Naderism and Buchananism. It's going to be native; anti-immigration; antitrade; very, very cool on military intervention; America first."

If a chimera of Nader and Buchanan rears it's head, I'll accept that as a sign of the freaking Apocalypse.

A third party can never make a serious dent in American society without some sort of fundamental change not only in the way we vote but in the way we perceive the world. The US is all about duopolies: God and Satan, black and white, beginning and end, digital cable and dish, and Democrats and Republicans. We don't like shades of gray. Shades of gray denote uncertainty and are the result of wasted lucubration. Commie pinkos! Facist fucks! That the American way.

But maybe Mr. Carville is on to something. We have a President that wants the economy to improve on the top and trickle down, and yet spends so much money even conservatives are complaining. He increases education funding that doesn't seem to fund anything but testing, and not teaching. He wants disadvantaged people to have universal health care, as long as those disadvantaged people live in Iraq. The Bush administration has a serious case of political schizophrenia, making choices that only seem to make sense to them.

So perhaps the duopoly will continue, but the political parties will change their animal icons from elephants and donkeys to griffons and merlions. But fundamental change won't come from a third party. One party moves one way, the other party moves to counter it. And until national, prominent elections employ an instant runoff system, third parties just look stupid to Americans.

However, if George Bush looks like the third party, not adhering to the tenets of Republicans or Democrats, then you have something. I think is is where a lot of the wishful thinking for a Kerry/McCain ticket comes from -- to alienate George Bush not only from Dems but also from the GOP.

Here's my point (and yes, I have one): Think back to middle school when you were learning the states of matter. A liquid is a state of matter that has "definite volume, but it takes the shape of its container with the help of gravity." (source) The liquid of our political system may slosh around, mix up, expand and contract, but the container is always the same. Creating a new container -- that's the hard part, the part that the system is designed to prevent.