We also over-fixate on "electability" - that is, we see who's ahead and side with frontrunners because we are fearful of wasting our vote on a loser. After breaking down the demographics, learning who has what endorsements, noting candidates' religions, learning about their spouses, listening to a televised debate (or just highlight clips of one) we are seemingly prepared to vote. But seldom do we read up on the specifics of a candidates' position on issues. This is because the campaigns themselves often want to avoid the issues - they have a year-long media spectacle going, so why should they lock in to anything when they can just spout vague slogans?
So frontrunners have an advantage - they know you are reluctant to "waste your vote" on a better candidate who is behind in the polls. So they take you for granted. If we adopt a ranked-choice voting system (San Francisco just did so for it's recent mayoral election), we will get to cast not just one vote but votes for our 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices. If our first choice does not meet a minimum total, our 2nd choice candidate will recieve our support, and so on. This type of system has been proposed, but would be years away. Sadly, no national pollster has surveyed the country so far in ranked-choice-fashion to compare how drastically "electability" affects the actual race. You can bet Kucinich, Dodd, Biden, Richardson and Gravel would get quite a few more votes (and therefore contributions) in this system.
We should also look at how a cap on overall campaign spending would affect the races. In the UK for example, candidates and parties are allowed only a small sum for all campaign spending. In the US, our next president will spend over $100 million, with over $3 billion in total being spent on the '08 race, almost double what was spent in 2004 - and almost all going to big media who in turn spends much of it on lobbying and campaigns who will help them.
Small wonder Congress just gave big media a Christmas gift despite vehement public outcry - the deregulation package just passed by the FCC will allow Fox's News Corp, Time Warner and GE to own print, TV and radio stations all in the same markets and put up political "roadblocks" to free speech and independent media, just in time for the election frenzy in November.
Also sad is the concentration on Presidential elections, as opposed to Congressional or local politics. We know all about the Presidential candidates from their marriage problems to their UFO sightings, but many of us don't even know who our local Congressional Rep is, let alone how they have been voting in our name. If we concentrated as a country on electing 60 anti-war US senators, or a veto-proof majority of Congress members, it would hardly matter who the President was!
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