"Don't expect any serious special interest to support a third party presidential candidate. Ever."

It depends on who that third party candidate is? Is Dobson planning on running? In 1992 Ross Perot got a good chunk of the vote, so it is not unreasonable to believe that a Third Party or Third Option candidate could pull substantial numbers of votes in an election where voter discontent is high. Ultimately, I believe, Americans have been hungry for a Third Party for decades now, but the winner-take-all presidential elections has curtailed support for Third Parties. A vast number of Americans would give serious support to the Green Party, if environmentalist and environmentally conscious voters thought the Green Party had any chance at taking the presidency, so instead they give their support to the Democratic Party, because they know (or presume futilely rather) that they have a better chance of getting their agenda enacted through Democratic politicians than through the Green Party.

Likewise for the Christian Conservatives, with overturning Row vs. Wade being their primary goal, they know a Christian political party would have no chance in a national election, so they instead merged with political conservatives, anti-tax libertarians, and anti-migrant nativists to strengthen the Republican Party in the hopes that through a Republican president Row vs. Wade would get overturned (but now that hope looks futile). The merger of anti-tax libertarians, political conservatives, anti-migrant nativists, and Christian Conservatives has been an odd one, and it wasn't until I lived aboard for several years that I saw just how bizarre it looks. Now for the first time voters are getting a good look at just how much of a misfit the 4 sides of Republican Party are. When we see the recent Republican debates, we see the political conservatives; Rudy, McCain, and Fred Thompson, fighting with the Christian Conservatives; newly turn Mitt, Huckabee, and Brownback, who in turn are both fighting against the anti-migrant nativists; Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo, and all of them are fighting the Libertarian; Ron Paul.

Were it not for presidential politics I doubt the merger that has formed the Republican Party would have transpired, and in 2008 that Merger is going to be shakier than ever.

A Christian Conservative Party formed out of the Republican sub-parties of Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, the U.S. Constitution Party, and the other Christian political groups that I am not too familiar with, would be a viable force on election night in 2008, depending upon who their candidate is. Dobson I don't think would garner much support, but Huckabee or Brownback could, but could either of those 2 men win the election? Probably not, but they may want to head the newly formed Christian Political Party, even in a failing 2008 effort, in order to improve the Christian Political Party's chances in 2012.

"This two party, electoral college system has kind of rigged the game."

Getting rid of the electoral college system would help a lot in lessening the power of the diopoly we have in American politics, and basing the election results entirely upon the popular vote would eliminate the chances of the 2000 Florida fiasco ever happening again. I hate the electoral college system for the additional reason that it gives every state a bonus of 2 electoral votes regardless of their size (had it not been for that 2 vote bonus, Bush would have lost in 2000 by 13 electoral votes, 224 for Gore and 211 for Bush).

But I would look into matters further, by possibly making the federal executive branch a lot like state executive branches. Why not make the cabinet posts nationally elected positions? That would eliminate the possibility of goons like Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, and Donald Rumsfeld from getting to the White House. Of course with that many races election day would become more heated, but you can bet the Executive Branch would be a lot more responsive to the demands of the voters.

"Seems to me that the only member of congress that is or ever was a member of the Klan is your own Senator Robert Byrd (D)."

True, the 90 year old Senator from West Virginia was indeed once a KKK member, but he has since reformed from being a Dixiecrat into a true Democrat and has renounced his earlier views on racial segregation.

former dem, you give me the impression that you are still a Dixiecrat. And if you ask every white supremacist out there, I am sure they will tell you that they either vote Republican or don't vote at all. The Dixiecrats have long since left the Democratic party, and became, like you, former dems now Republicans.

Since the Republicans are the politicians standing in the way of the Matthew Shapard Act becoming enacted, there is little argument that the Republicans are the current party of hate.

BTW, your moniker is "Truth and facts are the enemies of liberals." Since you are a self proclaimed man of truth and fact, does that mean that you believe in the overwhelming evidence that the world is several billion years old, that life evolves from lower lifeforms, that man-made CO2 emissions are causing global warming, that Terri Schiavo had indeed been brain dead for 15 year before she was taken off life support, that Al-Qaeda did not have a presence in Iraq prior to the US led invasion, that Saddam did not possess weapon of mass destruction prior to the US led invasion of Iraq, that the Bush administration's policies of deep debathification and disbanding of the Iraq military has led to the current chaos in Iraq, that the current Iraqi government has only met 3 of the "Surge's" 18 benchmarks, that the firing of 9 US attorneys by Alberto Gonzales was done at the direction of the Bush administration to politicize the Justice department, that Valerie Plame was illegally and harmfully outed by the Bush administration, that we are spending 10 billion dollar a month to keep our troops in Iraq, and that we are indeed a trillion dollars in debt to China?