Why would Sam not go for a third party who was less problematic? There are third party candidates available. Is it because they are unlikely to be elected? If so, this thinking keeps on trapping us into voting for the least bad of the bad.
It's more than unlikely. There is effectively zero chance of a third party candidate getting elected president in 2016.
Voting for one is throwing away your vote. Worse than that, it's throwing away an opportunity to indicate your second choice preference.
The US's first-past-the-post electoral system is not great, but voting for a third-party candidate does not at all address that problem. Instead, it plays exactly into the agenda of the two dominant parties by effectively disenfranchising yourself.
If you don't like the US's voting system, great, work to change it. Probably start by pushing for more small scale and local elections to switch to smarter voting systems. That way, citizens can used to them there and the venues are easier to change. Maybe eventually that will percolate all the way up and we can change the Constitution and change how the president is elected.
In the meantime, vote strategically for which of the two options to choose from that is most closely aligned to your interests.
No. It is not. The reason the two party system continues to exist is because so many people insist on there not being other options, despite there literally being other candidates on the ballot. There's a reason why Democrats have continued to spend money on turning Texas blue for years, despite the argument that they are "throwing money away." Momentum matters. Please don't listen to this. It's the absolute worst outcome of the two-party system: they've effectively convinced people that they're stuck with them, and it's why there are regular Republicans voting for Trump. Someone told them that not voting for him was throwing their vote away, and they listened.
No, it's because the mechanics of the voting rules themselves lead to a stable two party system.
There are ways to do things about the electoral system, both within the parameters of partisan politics and outside of them (at least, in the latter case, in the states with direct citizen initiative.)
Voting for 3rd parties in Presidential elections is fine, but really doesn't do much really and if you actually dig deep into 3rd party Presidential candidates, they're usually not great either.
Sure, I agree with you.
However, if your goal is to make third parties viable long-term in Presidential elections and not dependent on having very unfavorable candidates from the major 2 parties, I would argue that strong local and state 3rd parties are important.
Case in point : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3O01EfM5fU
If Clinton wins, the Repubs will go into a tailspin and introspect, if Trump were to win, Repubs and Dems will have to both look inwardly to figure out how their machinery failed so miserably in the face of a hack -a blowhard with no political experience who will say anything to win and who likely, if elected would make Taft look like a good executive.
Democrats and Republicans are already, and will continue, to investigate the failure of their machine. That much is true regardless. It's whether or not we're still here to do that introspection that I'd prefer to save.
Sometimes things need to get worse before they can get better.