That boggles me too. I guess a lot of them are easily brainwashed to toe a party line even though they don't really believe that they have their better interests at heart. Well S.H. happily I am not one of them since I vote my conscience and try to find the person who has my own interests at heart even if they only get 5% of the total vote, at least I will feel better about my selection.

What are you? Some kinda pinko lefty booooy? There are only 2 parties in the US-and they both have the same policies. Any party that came along that was minorly to the left of them (Ralph Nader) would be denounced by the press as 'communists' by the media and being un American.

You know, I'm just as perplexed as you are. Let me know when you find out. For now I'll remain independent.

the poor are generally uneducated and the uneducated are generally religious and the religious are generally republicans

The arrogance of this question is typical of liberal leftists. Leftists know what's better for the working class, but workers are so stupid, so uneducated, that they don't know what's best for them. Guess what, Mr. brainwashed liberal. It's YOU who are brainwashed, and it's you who are stupid, and it's BECAUSE you've been educated, by a bunch of tenured college professors who know they can't be fired so they feel free to teach thinly-disguised communism to all their empty-headed students. Fortunately, those students spend most of their time and energy hooking up and getting drunk so they still have the possibility of thinking left when they finally get out into the working-class world and discover that leftists are AGAINST working-class interests. Leftism has a single, five-word program: The abolition of private property. But the working class wants private property more than anything. Leftism has a governing slogan: "From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs." That is an EXACT AND COMPLETE DESCRIPTION OF WHAT NEGRO SLAVERY WAS. You can find it in the autobiography of Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became an abolitionist. P.S. More workers today are employed, own their own homes, and have adequate insurance than ever before in American history, and America is the envy of the world, which is why so many people are trying to get into it--illegally if necessary--and willing to come in on the BOTTOM rung of society.

the reason is Americans are to bloody lazy to get of their arses to go and vote ... so only a minority who do vote elect the government they want and the rest just stand back and whinge there asses of and say next time it will be different .... and guess what ...it ain't

The answer is somewhat complicated and paradoxical. Jim Webb wrote a book about the Irish-Scots who immigrated to the US from Northern Ireland and largely settled the areas from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas and east Texas. They brought with them a history of being bullied and dispossessed by the the British. The are very proud, clannish, emotional. Do you recall the cliche of "Hatfield and McCoys" which is a metaphor for the irrationality of hatred based some perceived wrong that was committed by some previous generation. (not unlike the tribal mentality in the middle east.) There is a distinct sense of not letting anyone think they are better than another (from English class structures), they fear intellectual thinking and "experts". There is also a complex love hate relationship to all forms of authority but mainly "god, country, father, husband". They vote against their own best interests because their fear overcomes their thinking, and they are generally not very educated. I have family that fits this category. What is most destructive, in my opinion, is the blind devotion women have to their fathers' and husbands' ego.

Because what other options do we have? There are two parties in effect that can actually ever get anywhere in an election... I equate it to the trick of religion. Make a few choices, all in direct contrast to one another but being just similar enough that the only thing that makes any of them valid at the end of the day is how many people you can get to pick one or another. The options are too great and the differences too vast for only two functioning parties to be the only choices. One thing will always suffer as the result of the other. Even if you vote on party, you lose something, even if you vote by issue jumping party you have to still sacrifice so much of your beliefs, its not really worth it. If you vote Nader or green or independent... Your voice get's lost completely and is rendered useless and silent. It all needs to be rethought. It's nonsense and garbage intended to control people in their own efforts to feel their voice means something that it doesn't.