Haha...I love this.
The only way to do government is full-blown communism, with a little genocide mixed in for good measure. This isn't a political statement, but someone should figure out how to make this happen.
Of course it's a political statement!
Americans would never accept a system that did not allow them to select their chief executives (presidents, governors, mayors).
In fact, the UK, one of the oldest parliamentary democracies in the world and the originator of the "Westminster System" used in most Anglophone countries, moved towards presidentialism with the Local Government Act 2003 that allowed directly-elected mayors, such as London's colorful Boris Johnson.
I understand wanting more options or not liking either available option but they're not the same. They don't have the same values, beliefs, principles, policies or experiences. They have many things in common, but they're not the same and it's not useless to talk about them and their perception in the polls.
On the contrary, it's not necessarily pessimism, the people who feel that way are probably just rather focused on the issues where the candidates are depressingly similar. For example if you want to see military spending massively reduced, the financial system reformed in fundamental ways to reduce systemic risk, or massively increased gasoline taxes to cover infrastructure improvements or green energy development, you probably feel badly served by both parties and their candidates right now.
On the other hand, if you're a gay man who wants to get married and start a family, or a redneck who wants to be able to carry your .357 magnum wherever you want whenever you want, or a rich guy who wants to keep your taxes as close to zero as can be achieved under the current two party system, the party differences are rather more obvious to you.
It's not really a question of pessimism, just the way people prioritize things. A person who has a lot of strong interests in the first category of issues (where the parties are rather similar, or just similarly useless) might be a lot more likely to say the parties are the same than a person whose strong interests are in the other set of issues.
If I instead compare and contrast them with each other, obviously I can too can see that they are not "the same"
The importance of those similar areas to other people is unaddressed in this concern. Key is that the opinion holder see this as a larger issue in their, or everyone's lives, even if others (you, me, anyone) may disagree.
Plurality voting ensures that there are two major parties, and that they are as similar as possible without ceding ground to third parties.
1) Not vote 2) Start something like the Tea Party 3) Toss the incumbents out because they weren't extreme enough
This is happening on the left as well; we're becoming way more partisan as a country, and slowly but surely removing all the moderates from Congress.
There are just over 600 people in my ward of my township. 67 people voted in 2011 for the Council seat that was up. It's disgusting.
I would posit that the cause is somewhat different, though: the partisan zealots are the ones that vote in every single primary and general election. For those of you who vote for POTUS and that's all, there are actually two elections every year. The country as a whole I think is more moderate than 99% of our elected officials, but the country as a whole isn't voting. It's largely straight-ticket people voting, especially in off years. This results in Members of Congress becoming more extreme because those are the people voting for them.
The reason the country is becoming more partisan is more likely due to the benefits of incumbency, and the insane level of gerrymandering we allow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#United_States
That they are both bought and paid for by the same corporate money. Where do the hundreds of millions to fund the campaigns come from? You don't think that those interests might, you know, want something in return?
All mainstream political "discussion" is simply a distraction from the true issues. To think anything else is just naive.
Quite frankly, that's bullshit. Romney/Ryan advocate a rollback of my rights and continued (or furthered) discrimination against me. That's only one small social issue that they differ on and they differ on policies that involve much more substantive issues.
Maybe you're privileged or fortunate enough to not be affected by tax rates, women's rights legislation, gay rights issues, and more, but many of us aren't. Those issues matter and that's why some support Romney and some support Obama.
How clueless are people about social issues exactly?
As for national health-care, education, science, etc, they very noticeably and very starkly differ as well.
... I feel like you just supported what I was saying. My second post was simply an example of how they differ in meaningful ways.
Oh I certainly agree.