"it's basically inevitable that you're going to have at most two substantial candidates for one office (and three for two offices, and so forth) if voters can work out who the front-runners are"
This may explain why there are only two significant contenders for any given race, but does not explain why there are only two parties. Compare us to England or Canada, where there are multiple parties with representatives in their Parliament. Each seat may only be competetive between two candidates (I don't know for sure that this is so, but I'll stipulate), but across the country they have three or four parties wielding a not insignificant amount of power.
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Date: 2006-10-25 02:46 pm (UTC)This may explain why there are only two significant contenders for any given race, but does not explain why there are only two parties. Compare us to England or Canada, where there are multiple parties with representatives in their Parliament. Each seat may only be competetive between two candidates (I don't know for sure that this is so, but I'll stipulate), but across the country they have three or four parties wielding a not insignificant amount of power.
Why is that not the case here?