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Flip to just about any of the major news networks and chances are, on any given day, you will see a member of either major political party being exposed for some disgraceful activity. From the virtual vacuum of new ideas and strong leadership in the Democratic party, to the unbelievable levels of arrogance and corruption of the Republicans, we can clearly see a problem with the current two-party system.

Talk to just about anyone on the street, at school, or at work, and chances are, you will find them to be of relatively moderate opinions on many of the major political issues of the day. Why then, do we see only staunch ideologues take positions of authority in either party? For instance, John Kerry is often considered to be the second-most liberal Senator (second only to his Massachusetts colleague Robert Kennedy) in the country, yet he is considered to be one of the dominant members of his party.
Another very big, and little discussed issue is cronyism, the appointing of friends, family and big donors to key positions. An example of this would be the recent debacle around the presidential appointment of Robert Brown to the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. Mr. Brown, or "Brownie," as president Bush so fondly referred to him, has no real credentials to land him in this prestigious position. As a matter of fact, his only "real" job was as president of a horse association, a position from which he was fired. Prior to this, Mr. brown was a non-practicing lawyer whose only qualifications for the FEMA position were connections. It can be reasonably assumed that people died during the complete mishandling of the hurricane Katrina emergency due to this man's incompetence and the presidents embarrassing decision to hire him.
Many people will say the existence and general failure of the Green and Libertarian parties are proof that alternatives do exist, and they are simply not of any real value. The major flaw of this idea is simple. Both of these parties are even more extreme Left and Right, respectively, of their mainstream counterparts. The Green parties affiliation with radical environmentalism and the Libertarians isolationist concepts tend to be too much for the average citizen. How, then, can we actually consider these two groups to be realistic alternatives?
Perhaps changing the major parties from the inside could be an option, but at what point do we decide to just tear up the page and head back to the drawing board? As the young up and

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