>The US political system is fundamentally hostile to second parties. The
>first-past-the-post system, which only the UK continues to use, ensures
>that you get monopolies -- the 51% rule, the 49% get turned off from
>politics, etc
BTW, you have it back to front. The first-past-the-post system has no rule ensuring a candidate needs over 50% of the vote to get elected, that is a feature of preferential voting. Under FPTP the candidate with the highest number of votes is elected, even if that is much less than 50% of the vote. If there are three candidates, that means it is theoretically possible to be elected with as little as 33.4% of the valid votes cast. The more candidates, the lower the percentage of votes needed to win.
Rather, it is the preferential system which requires a majority of votes to elect a candidate. (50% + 1 of valid votes.)
I wouldn't have expected you yanks to understand the preferential system, but its a surprise to find you don't even understand the mathematics of the FPTP system.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas